Skip to main content

Joy

The Mobile Press Register was quite a bit heavier today than yesterday. Some of the extra bulk can be attributed to a special 26 page section about the history of the Iron Bowl. Most of the additional weight in today’s paper was from a mountain of sales papers heralding that a new season of shopping is waiting just beyond the turkey and thankfulness.

The season of joy begins tonight with the annual convergence of Christmas decorating and Black Friday shopping. But everyone may not be so joyful. For some people the Christmas season is one of their loneliest times of the year. Other people may be struggling with reasons to be thankful today after a year of job losses, and future economic uncertainty renders the prospect of a joyful Christmas bleak. Some people simply don’t like Christmas, but we will leave the Scrooges for Mr. Dickens.

Reasons abound for people not to be happy, but there are few reasons to lack joy. The season of joy is not affected by circumstances when fully understood. Happiness varies based on our present circumstances. If you give a kid ice cream, he will be happy. If you take the ice cream away prematurely, you will inherit an unhappy child. Joy is not dependent upon circumstances. Joy is much deeper than happiness.

In Acts 13, we learn that Paul and Barnabas were run out of Antioch of Pisidia because of the offense of their gospel preaching. Paul and Barnabas were run out of most of the towns were they preached, but the end of Acts 13 says that Paul and Barnabas were “filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” Paul’s circumstances changed almost daily, but his joy was not affected. Paul was shipwrecked, beaten, cold, lonely, stoned (biblically not from narcotics) and left for dead, but he never lost his joy.

Happiness and joy are easy to distinguish.

Happiness
sweet potato pie
playing ball with my great niece
snowflakes
teaching a class
finishing a long run

Joy
the God who seeks me
the God who never lets go

I can lose my happiness, but not my joy. Did someone mention sweet potato pie? I need my energy as I start the season of joy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Life Worth Living

We all have an idea of how we hope that our life would go. We all have dreams. We have dreams for our own lives and the lives of people who are close to us. We have goals that we would like to accomplish during our lifetime. We have a measure of what would constitute a complete life for us. When reality does not match our idealized life, we are disappointed and sad. We grieve the loss of a life that we had imagined both for ourselves and those who are close to us. We wonder where God is in all of these situations. The Bible tells us about a man with whom we can identify. Jacob’s life had taken several unexpected twists, yet he came to the end of his life content with God’s will. Jacob was ready to die, when his end was approaching. He was at peace with his life and all that God had done through him even though life had not turned out the way that he had planned. Finally, Jacob said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen your face again and know you are still al
Post a Comment
Read more

Technical Difficulty

This blog has been inactive for a while due to some technical issues. It is good to be back and I have learned that my technical ability has declined in the last few years. It is amazing how quickly things change. I have been around computers for almost 30 years. My dad bought a commodore 64 in the early 80’s and bought an IMB clone pc later that decade. I spent part of my childhood playing Impossible Mission and Pac Man while typing the occasional paper. For those of you who did not grow up in the 80’s, yes, typing a paper was a big deal. I’m surprised that I didn’t get beat up more as a kid. I learned how to use pc’s before Windows 3.1 and remember when Word Perfect was better than Word – the WYSIWYG was way better on Word Perfect when printing to a dot matrix. While I was in college in the early 90’s I took computer programming and worked in the computer lab. During graduate studies I continued working in computer labs and began doing contract work for computer vendors
Post a Comment
Read more

A pat on the back

I really just wanted a pat on the back. Several years ago I attended an appreciation luncheon for pastors. I had been to a similar event hosted by the same group the previous year, and I really enjoyed it. The previous year they gave away some nice prizes, and we all left the event feeling encouraged and valued. I knew the main speaker before the event and I had been looking forward to his encouraging words. As soon as he started his address, I knew that it was going to be a difficult lunch. He began asking us probing questions about our prayer life and our personal relationship with God. He continued pressing us to evaluate sin in our life and called us to turn from our sin. I could not believe it. How could this guy do this to us? I came here to be encouraged not attacked. His assignment was simple. All he had to do was talk about how tough ministry is and let us know that he has been there. He could throw in a few funny stories and everyone would leave happy. The longer he s
Post a Comment
Read more