If life in Christ is supposed to be a life of joy, why do we live without it so often? I’m sure there are tons of reasons, but as I was sitting here not feeling joyful, I thought of two that have been affecting me lately. (I’m not sure if I should have written effect or affect there, I was supposed to learn that in high school but I wasn’t paying attention.)
The first thing is that my focus can get too narrow. James says that we should consider it a joy when we face trials. Sounds stupid! But the reason he can say that and not be laughed out of the Bible by Paul and Esther is that he is writing it from an eschatological perspective. By that I don’t mean that if we just keep “Left Behind” in mind while we experience trials that we’ll be really happy (in fact, we may become doubly sad because not only will we be experiencing trials, but we’ll be thinking about some trashy fiction too). James said trials were a joy because of what they produced in us, but if all we can see is our current situation and how tough it is it’s going to be hard to have much joy. We have to keep a wider perspective on what God is doing.
Numero dos has to do with not living in the moment. (Yes, I know I just preached a sermon on being present in prayer, but apparently this applies to more than one area.) When I’m at work I don’t have joy because I want to be with my family. When I’m with my family I’m thinking about work and some of the things that I enjoy about that. The point is that I love my family, my job, my friends, and lots of other stuff about my life but too often I live somewhere other than where I am and so I don’t experience the joy of the moment.
We were created for joy. I hope I can learn to experience the joy God has set right in front of me.
1 comment:
It's very cool to see this post, Trevor. I was up until 2:00 Thursday night and a similar thought came in my mind during that time. In fact, it was on the topic of not having joy in your service or ministry. Or, feeling blah about it. So, I wrote an article. We'll see if it was for my own good, or if someone actually wants to pick it up.
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