grace – Page 2

Where Does Joy Come From?

February 10, 2017

“The joy of the Lord is my strength.” Most of us are familiar with this scripture in Nehemiah 8:10. We have sung it, declared it, and experienced it. In my book A Widow’s Might I share about how, in my own life, unexplainable joy came into me and with it came strength that kept the intense pain and sadness of missing Alan from overpowering me and turning into despair.

Joy is a powerful thing. It’s a fruit of the Spirit so it’s in us at all times. However, we don’t always experience it. Just because something is in us doesn’t mean that we’re releasing it into our situations or our lives.

I’ve contemplated this Bible verse many times, kind of wondering, where does this joy that is our strength really come from? How does it work? Why do some believers seem to have more of it than others? Yes, it’s a fruit of the Spirit, but how do I release it into my life? As one who enjoys learning about scientific things, I’m interested in knowing what makes things work.

Well, usually anyway. Some things I take for granted. I don’t really know what makes a car work, nor am I curious about it. I know if I keep it maintained, fill it with gas, and keep air in the tires, then when I need to go somewhere it will get me there. My grandson Luke, on the other hand, has a keen interest in what makes a car work. His knowledge helps him take better care of his car, and when he’s driving, his awareness of all those mysterious workings under the hood enhances his driving experience.

The same principle applies to understanding Bible passages. We see things happen in our lives when we apply the truth of scripture, but we don’t always know how they work. Like my enjoying the benefits of driving a car whose workings I don’t understand, we believe what we read in the Bible, stand on that truth, and see God working in our lives. But when we get a revelation of what makes it work, our experience is enriched.

A few nights ago the leader of our women’s ministry at church shared a scripture that absolutely blew my mind, and answered the questions I had been pondering. The verse is Jeremiah 15:16: “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your Word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your Name, oh Lord God of hosts.” So that’s where unspeakable joy comes from! It comes from the Word.

Suddenly it clicked! The entire time Alan was in the hospital, I was starting every day in the Word of God, I was reading the Bible aloud to him for hours at a time, and I was singing to him, and to myself, songs that were Scripture set to music So when Alan went to be with the Lord, I had been saturating my heart in the Word of God. When the ultimate trial came, that Word brought me joy, which in turn brought strength, enabling my heart to rejoice despite all I was going through.

I guess when you get right down to it, whatever the question may be, the answer is always “the Word.” The best way to know God and be close to Him is spending time in His Word. Then when our road takes a turn we weren’t expecting, we aren’t completely knocked off the path. Supernatural joy will sustain us through the hard times.

Isn’t it cool the way God uses the Bible to explain the Bible! He not only tells us what we need (joy, for example) but He tells us where to find it! Yay God!

Ceiling Surprise

August 22, 2016

Imagine how my nephew Jon must have felt when he walked into the house I rent in Arizona and saw this! The home belongs to my sister and her husband who live in California, and Jon keeps an eye on it when it’s not rented out. He was there earlier that day, and everything looked fine. Little did any of us know an air conditioner drainpipe had come apart at a seam, allowing water to drip onto the ceiling below. Eventually the water-logged plaster collapsed and fell to the floor, ceiling fan and all. Who knows how long the pipe had been like that? It was probably broken while I was living there last winter, but since I only ran the AC for a few hours a day, the plaster had time to dry out between times and the damage went undetected.

Ordinarily the AC isn’t running while the house is vacant, but my sister and her husband had been there three weeks before, meeting with contractors to arrange a face-lift for the house. Because workmen would be in and out, they kept the AC turned on when they left. If it hadn’t been running for those three weeks, the damage wouldn’t have occurred until after I arrived in November, ruining some of the work that was done during the summer, and I would have had to find a place to stay while repairs were completed. The original plans didn’t include replacing the carpet or the ceiling, so now the house I’ll return to in November will be even nicer than what was originally planned. Fortunately they have good insurance, so it wasn’t a financial disaster, and no one was in the house when the ceiling fell, so there were no injuries.

Romans 8:28 comes to mind. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” While a collapsed ceiling is not a good thing, much good came from the situation, and it’s easy to see God’s timing and protection. However, another verse spoke to me even louder as I thought about what had occurred: “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes” (Song of Solomon 2:15). These were just little drops of water – drip, drip, drip – but because no one stopped them, they accumulated till eventually a whole big ceiling was ruined, causing major destruction.

How does this apply to our lives? One way is in our thinking patterns. If we allow small, seemingly harmless, negative thoughts to stay in our minds instead of catching them, “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5), they can fester and accumulate in our hearts, waterlogging our attitudes and emotions. Left unchecked, those attitudes and emotions will lead to wrong actions, causing serious damage to our own lives and those of the people around us.

Destructive emotions like anger, envy, and depression do not just happen. They are the results of thinking patterns we have allowed to develop over time. We need to guard our hearts. If we find any little foxes that have managed to sneak in, we must catch and kill them! God is ready to help us with the killing if we bring those foxes to Him.

(No real animals were killed – nor was such a thing advocated – in the writing of this post.)