Joy
Joy is conviction.
These three words took 4,320 minutes to pen... three days to boldly find their place between the thin lines of my journal. I fought for them, which is often the process when the Lord is trying to dismantle the false ideas that I have about stuff.
Joy was apparently the "stuff" this time.
Three days earlier, I had wrestled with a question before the Lord in prayer, a question that squeezed me tight until I tapped out. After I caught my breath, I humbly pushed away the commentaries and spent some time quieting my thoughts. I decided to place my question at His feet, until He answered only as He can. Sometimes we just need to shut up and listen.
My question... What calls Joy up and out in our circumstance?
His answers always fit me, they are custom made for the way that I bend without compromising truth in any way. They train and teach me in the way that I should go or in some cases draw me away from the way that I have been. His answers cut right to the heart of what I truly want, passing up the opportunity to entertain my shallow expectations, moving straight to what I really need to hear.
What a very good thing it is to know the God who answers in that way.
I had no idea that in a matter of days following this answer, I would receive some very devastating news. This news shook the earth beneath me, leaving me wobbly in my thinking. I needed an answer that had the power to transform my response... I would truly need Joy called up and out into my circumstance. Only His answers have the power to still the earth... to quiet my mind with three simple words. Joy is conviction.
Conviction is this beautiful state of being completely convinced of something, fully persuaded by it.
I am fully persuaded that Jesus is Lord. I am convinced that joy is full in His presence and that I am eternally near Him.
I began to picture the Joy of the Lord as this extravagant and ongoing invitation TO BELIEVE. Joy invites me to enter into a mindset of unwavering conviction about His absolute GOODNESS. Joy places a solid song of praise in my heart whether I am celebrating on the mountain top or suffering through the valley. It is constant and it never leaves me. Joy is not something I must acquire; joy is called up and out of who I am... settled in Christ... rested in His promises.
I recognize this incredible tenderness in the way that God gives to His children. In reality, we have absolutely ALL of Him, yet practically, He seems to lovingly lay Himself down along the way that we walk so that we will find Him over and over again... choose TO BELIEVE Him over and over again.
I love this way about Him, this way that allows us to discover who He is in real time. He is the author of our wonder, miraculously creating moments within the mundane, filled with the awe of adventure and discovery.
I remember now, times in my past, in the middle of the brokenness, joy drawing me back to Christ. Joy, the nourished and ripe fruit of the Holy Spirit, drawing me back to truth. That's what it looks like. Joy does something.
Happiness just shows up for the pleasant stuff and then abandons us when things get ugly. Joy remains... it draws... it creates a faithful response to devastating news and then sticks around to hold your hand through it.
It is a gift given from a place we have never been before, yet we live there daily. A kingdom gift.
As believers there is something that lies before us at all times. It is set before our eyes ahead of everything that we do and anything that we go through. It is solid.
It is the Joy of the Lord and it was always intended to be called up and out into our circumstance.