Throughout my entire childhood, my mother, sister & I lived with my grandmother, and I would often hear her walking through the house early on a Sunday morning, rattling pots & pans because she wanted us to wake up and get dressed for church without being late. And I would always hear her humming/singing a song that still reminds me of her today. She would sing, “This joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me and the world can’t take it away.”
Yesterday my husband spoke about the strength that believers should experience due to having the Joy of the Lord. In the spiritual context and principle, joy can be translated as “life” and is not be confused with the common ideas of happiness. This is because true joy is not subject to our situations while happiness can be circumstantial and very temporary. For the believer, joy is a choice while happiness is only a feeling. Joy allows us to live life above and beyond what we can see with our natural eyes, essentially allowing the believers to deal with the circumstances of life with a trust that eliminates fear.
As the scripture suggests, joy provides strength to endure the trials, battles and challenges of life. The trials that we face often consume every bit of natural strength we have. It takes all you have to raise children as a single mother, to be a godly wife in a difficult marriage, to resist the attractive yet unsaved gentleman who is flattering your emotions when you’re single. And it certainly takes all the strength you have to control your emotions when something touches them and threatens to open the floodgates. So if you are trying to accomplish any of these things in your own strength, my sister you are fighting a losing battle. You cannot defeat your flesh without a greater strength that you can tap into.
But I have great news for you! There is a level of strength that is stronger than any situation or temptation that you could ever encounter. It is even stronger than YOU. And there is only one place to get this strength. It is the place where you come to completely and totally trust in God. Without a full and complete trust in God, you will never have joy and thus never experience true strength. When you trust Him, you learn to see the blessing and godly purpose in and beyond your circumstances. You trust His Word to guide you in making the necessary decisions to walk out your purpose and destiny according to His will rather than relying on yourself or other external forces.
However, when your trust is not full, neither is your joy. And when your joy is not full, neither is your strength. A full joy occurs when you realize that your covering lies in your absolute trust for Him. And absolute trust for him shows up in what you do, not merely what you say. As Pastor so emphatically said yesterday, when we are not operating in a total and complete trust for God that is reflected in our life and circumstances, we are just faking it. We are called to be living epistles read of men, which means that if God is this great God that we often sing and talk about, it should be evident in the lives we live rather than our words or extreme spiritual displays of religiosity.
I’m sure many of you remember that old song that my grandmother used to sing, and I’m hoping it gets stuck in your head for the remainder of the week. J And as you’re humming softly to yourself, reminding yourself that the joy that YOU have, the world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away, I hope that you will stop for a brief moment and at some point this week ask yourself this question: What about your life proves this statement is true for you?
Have a great week!
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