Fighting for Joy

Have you ever had to fight for joy?  I mean, really, really fight for it?  You lay in your bed in the morning and pray you can fall back asleep just to wake up with a smile and passion to jump head-first into all that your day holds.  And yet, more than anything else, you desire joy – you desire that the Lord would fill you to overflowing and that you would be content to sit in His presence.  What are all these distractions that strip us from being able to see the Lord clearly in our lives? 

I am finding more and more every day that my relationship and intimacy with the Lord is directly related to my commitment to become more like Him and walk away from temptations.  In short, walk away from sin.  Sin eats away at our very core and strips of not only what is most precious to us, but also what we need the most – a vibrant and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. 

I have nine days left before I return to America and every day right now, I am choosing to fight – fight a battle that I can’t fight on my own, but I also can’t be naive enough to think that I can sit on the sidelines and hope for a win.  I also know that when I step back into America, my issues and sin will still be with me if I don’t seek forgiveness and healing now.  That would be a waste of the precious little time that I have been given to live on this earth and make God’s name great!  But to be completely honest, this past week has been a battle – not because anyone has done anything or because I am unhappy here, but because the holy God of the universe has chosen to take me as I am, sitting here on the other side of the world away from all the comforts and things that are familiar to me, and break me.  And by break, I mean strip me to the core and show me the filthiness of my heart.  He has shown me how selfishness has stood in my path and how I have clung to it – how wonderful it looked when I first chose to walk towards it. 

The truth God is good has never been so real to me.

Do you know just how good He is?

It hurts and it sucks to be made aware of weaknesses in your life, but it is evidence of the faithfulness of the Lord to continue to prune me and mold me to be more like Him each and every day of my life.  He is so faithful, and like a father who spanks his child in loving discipline, so our Heavenly Father takes us aside and shows where we have gone wrong, how to start walking straight again – and reminds us that He loves…He has and He always will. 

As I sit here today and write, I can say with a grateful heart that as much as it hurts, this pain is good.  Without Christ, I could not say that.  But my eyes are fixed on Him who saves me every day of my life.  He gives me the strength to say “You are good” because He has proven Himself faithful and I know that whatever He chooses to work in me has a purpose.

I do not want to be selfish or prideful – I want to be loving and complimentary and encouraging!

I am thankful that the Lord has shown me sin in my heart and life. I am thankful that He has worked in me so that it disgusts me to see it and be identified with it.  I am thankful for His salvation in my life.  I am thankful, that in all His grace and mercy, even through difficult lessons like I am learning, I am still learning more and more about the Gospel as it becomes more and more real to me with each passing day.  I am thankful for the truths that I read in the Word this week about how the Lord has called us to be His own:

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13-14

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  1 Peter 2:9-10

My heart’s desire is to finish strong in the next nine days - to go forth in joy into this incredible city and pray for it and share Truth if the Lord allows me an opportunity.  There is nothing that I would love more.  I am seeking and praying and begging the Lord for His joy to fill every part of my being.  I will wait on Him because He is worth waiting for.

But for now - I am thankful to be alive and to see the sun beginning to set over the city.  I am thankful to be here.  I am thankful for pain that will not endure forever.  I am thankful that the Gospel has become more real to me.

And so, as Jeremiah says in Lamentations 3:19-26:

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.  Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me.  This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.  The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.  ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I have hope in Him.’  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.  It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord.

I will wait on the Lord.  He is my delight and my reward and in Him my soul finds rest and shelter.  He is enough.  He is my joy, even when joy is a fight.

These two songs,“Not Guilty Anymore” and “Not What My Hands” by Aaron Keyes, have been an incredible encouragement to me recently as it talks about how I am not guilty anymore - I stand blameless before the Lord because, as His child, He has declare me righteous in His sight!  Even when I have nothing to bring before the Lord, He still accepts me and has clothed me in His righteousness. I literally listen to these songs over and over - they speak Truth that gives me something to cling to and rest in. 

Continue to fight strong. 

I will always be learning this discipline, but what I have learned so far is that it is worth it!