Pure Joy Part Two~

Happy TGIF ~

We've been looking at God's gentle encouragement to "consider it pure joy," when faced with problems. Not just joy, as though that weren't hard enough, but PURE joy.

Let us turn to our on-line resource, dictionary.com, for clarification.

Joy means, "the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying." Pure means, "free from anything of a different, inferior, or contaminating kind; free from extraneous matter: pure gold; pure water."

That's a simplistic definition for all us spiritual giants, but there is a lot of truth here. Obviously we can have joy when exceptionally good and/or satisfying things are happening. But God puts the word "pure" in front of the kind of joy He wants us to have because our level of happiness and delight should not depend on how many struggles we are facing. He wants us having joy no matter what--free from external influences. The junk of life so easily contaminates our joy, however, so what are we to do?

Just this morning I received an email from Max Lucado that thoroughly blessed my soul.

I love love love him and highly recommend ANYTHING he has ever written. He brought something to my attention that I had never noticed before.

“On the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it.” (I Corinthians 11:23)

What frame of mind do you think you or I would be in if we were about to face the greatest struggle of our life and knew it was coming? Yet our Lord takes the time to say thanks...

This is only possible if we make having joy that is free from external circumstances a priority. And we get better at it by practicing. And one of the ways we practice is by being thankful.

Allow me to share a prayer that someone prayed yesterday. Some details will be omitted to protect privacy.

"Dear Lord, Thank You that You preserve my life and the life of my child. Thank You that while I am waiting for You to open up my child's eyes to the error of her ways, I can have joy in knowing that You will never get frustrated or weary of hearing me and helping me. I have joy because even though I do not have all the answers, You do. You have never let me down before, and knowing that strengthens my soul. You have all the answers, all the solutions, and all the power for my situation, and You are willing to share. You are a sharing and caring Father, and You sings songs of love over me, which settles my heart. You have not taken Your eyes off my child for one second, and You are busy busy busy bringing about a change in the direction my child is headed. I have joy because of Your great promise that You will work everything out for my benefit and my child's benefit..."

That's just a small portion of what my buddy prayed. Isn't that fantastical? Sometimes only the melding of two words--fantastic and phenomenal--can explain an emotion!

Pray that prayer for yourself and edit according! Our Lord has set the example and shown us what we need to do when facing the greatest storms of life.

In Jesus' name, AMEN~