This is a transcript of a talk given earlier this year by my granddaughter, Brooke Newman, who is a pastor's wife in the United Kingdom.
Joy. Joy is my topic for this morning and a good thing to dwell on at this time of year. Today I want to talk about Christian joy. We will look at some of the things the Bible says about joy, some of the reasons we lose it, and how to regain it.
I wanted to talk about this because in my life I can honestly say that the impact of just a few people really living lives of deep joy in all circumstances has changed my entire family. It started with my grandfather, who learned these lessons after he became a Christian. His joy had a profound impact on all of his children, and the trickle went from there to all of his descendants, even down to the multitude of great-grandkids.
Joy is powerful. I came to faith at the ripe old age of four, and I was never tempted to walk away, because I knew the reality of true joy. I saw it in my family, the joy of being right with God, the joy of forgiveness. I have lost my joy plenty of times, but it’s been restored again and again. I have tested what my grandpa taught me from the Bible so many times and found it true. Today I am reminding myself of things I need to hear on a daily basis!
So what is this joy? When we talk about joy in normal life, it is usually accompanying something more special than just a walk on a nice day. We experience joy at a wedding or a birth, something that was lost being restored, or a long-desired healing for a person or a relationship miraculously taking place. Joy is wonderful. If you think about it, joy is most often talked about in the context of relationships, either new ones gained with birth and marriage, or restoration, healing for those we love, or a reconciliation.
Christian joy is about all of those things combined. In fact, salvation is described in the Bible as a birth, a marriage, a healing, a restoration, and a reconciliation all together! There are not enough ways to describe the amazing nature of what truly happens to us when we believe in Jesus Christ and trust Him to save us. God is telling us to look, look, see what is happening, be overjoyed. When we trust in Jesus, God says to us, just as he said to Jesus, “You are my beloved child; in you I am well pleased.”
This, from the God of the universe, the God who made every atom and designed every living thing. He says this of you if you believe and trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection on your behalf. Can you even fathom what an honor that is? This the personal love of a God who is eternal, who always has been and who always will be, and in comparison to whom the universe is small. This is the God whom we were made to love and enjoy forever. It is this lasting, personal, ever-filling relationship that we as humans were designed for, and the restoration of this relationship is the basis of deep abiding joy.
I hope you remember a time or times in your life when this kind of joy has been present, perhaps overwhelming? Many of you remember when you first believed, and the weight of guilt fell off, and all you knew was complete acceptance and joy in God’s presence. That kind of moment is a wonderful reminder of the reality of God’s work in our lives. It is a testimony of God’s work.
What else can we learn from the Bible about joy? Psalm 16 says, “In your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” In Galatians we learn that joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit. Joy is a mark of being in God’s presence, and joy is a mark of having the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. This is the God we serve, the God who brings joy. Not only that, but the joy He brings should be deep-abiding, and it should not change because of our circumstances, because God does not change, and He never leaves us.
In Romans it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If nothing can separate us from the love of God, then nothing can separate us from the joy of His presence. He is with us even in the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23). In fact, joy should be a motivator in the midst of terrible times. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus Himself endured death on the cross, for what? For the joy. The joy at doing the will of His Father and the joy of what that would accomplish; the joy of His relationship with His people. We can be a part of His joy. Joy doesn’t depart during hard times.
It is really important here to distinguish joy from happiness. We know that Jesus wasn’t happy in the Garden of Gethsemene waiting for His arrest. He was in anguish on the cross. As Christians, we can experience agonizing pain, heartbreak, and loss, and we don’t need to deny the existence of these things or put on a plastic smile. But in all of these trials we have access to God Himself. Often we think of God as having given us things like forgiveness and the hope of heaven. These are wonderful things, but God is not content with this—He wants to give us Himself. I heard a story once of a poverty-stricken old woman on her death bed whose words were, “All this and Christ, too.” “In Your presence is the fullness of joy.”
Christian joy is brought about by a restored relationship to God, being forgiven and brought into God’s presence where there is fullness of joy. You can’t get a fuller joy that this. It is a joy that runs deep. It will stay with you through thick and thin. But does it? We see examples of this miraculous joy in the apostles who rejoiced and sang while they were in prison. We see it in people like Corrie and Betsie ten Boom, the Dutch women who protected Jews and who thanked God for everything and were able to praise him even in a Nazi concentration camp.
But do we have this kind of joy? Slowly, without realizing it, we often lose that initial joy. We might get it back at intervals when God gets our attention with His love for us during a hard time, when He answers a prayer or something like that, but often the months or years in between are a slog with little joy. We notice the lack of joy and are quick to look for ways to fix it. If you are like me, you might look for a change in circumstances. You think it must be problems getting in the way. We might start feeling as though nothing would be wrong if weren’t for all the dumb things other people do, so we start to resent them as the cause of our joylessness.
Often it goes this way at church. We have lost our joy in God’s presence, so we start to focus on all the little things that bug us in a service or a church get-together. I have done this. I start noticing things I don’t like in worship songs or other mishaps in a service. If I am joyful, I usually forget it as fast as I notice it, or, if not, I at least can have a laugh. But if I am not joyful, I can begin to resent those things as messing things up my time, ruining my joy, making time with God difficult. But we know that nothing can make our time with God impossible, nothing can separate us from His love—future, past, angels, demons, death, danger, whatever—the Bible says so. Can a service with mishaps or your least favorite songs, or even, heaven forbid, poorly made tea at fellowship hour separate us from His love? Clearly not. But if little things that other people do fill us with angst and aggravation and we lose our joy, something has gone wrong. Those things didn’t cause us to lose our joy the presence of God. We lost it before that, and we replaced it with a fake, a "joy" that is really only moderate happiness in circumstances being just how we want them, which of course is rare.
The best marriage advice I have ever been given was this: If you do something wrong, if you have an argument or are unkind or unthoughtful or do anything that has upset your relationship with your spouse, make it right, right away, period. Don’t go to bed, don’t go to work, don’t let people into the house, until your relationship is restored and you can honestly say you are in good fellowship. This builds trust. You don’t have to worry that your spouse is going to work to vent about you. There is no doghouse. If you do this, then your spouse can trust that having a good relationship all the time is of first importance to you, and vice versa. The joy you experienced being with your spouse at the beginning will not continue if either of you start harboring resentment about little things that were never made right. This is how you keep a good marriage good, and this how you make it better. There are usually two categories of reasons for not enjoying being in the presence of your spouse: either he has wronged you, or you have wronged him, and his presence brings that guilt to mind, and you would rather it didn’t. Often it is both.
How does this connect to Christian joy? Deep-lasting joy is found in our relationship with God. If we lose the joy, that means something has gone wrong in that relationship. Just like in marriage, there are two ways to lose the joyful fellowship in God’s presence you had when you first believed. Believing that God has let you down in some way is the first option, and being uncomfortable in His presence because actually there are wrong things in your life is the second. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed, the first thing they did when they heard God coming was hide. They lost their joy in His presence.
What does it look like to believe that God has wronged you or that He is unreliable? I think it is easy to not realize we are doing this. As Christians, we aren’t allowed to say God is wrong, except for in in our worst moments when nobody is looking! I grew up in a Christian home and knew all the right answers: of course God is good, of course He is powerful and knows everything, but I don’t like what is happening to me. Discontent raises its hackles in my soul. I don’t like my lot, the day is wet, I am behind on laundry, and I just spilled my coffee all over the only pair of clean trousers I had, and probably a small child will step in the puddle and start spreading it all over the house. I don’t feel like I am blaming God; I am just being human, right? Just feeling put upon and resenting my little world being jostled around.
In the Bible, it says that trials help us become mature and complete, not lacking anything. Often we forget God’s good purposes in our petty first-world trials the most, because with agonizing trials (illness, tragedy), we feel our helplessness more acutely and are more likely to cling to our loving God just like a child will cling to her parents when she is suffering pain. But with petty things, we often struggle to accept God’s place in it all. Urrg, my washing machine is leaking! (You know, that expensive thing that I can afford to use to wash our gazzilions of clothes with.) All those things that bother and annoy are opportunities, opportunities to grow, opportunities to believe God because He says He is using these things (it’s all part of the “all things” that He is working together for your good) for your maturity, and when you get the eternal perspective on your botherations, they are actually amazing opportunities to laugh! When we don’t trust that God is using our problems for our good, we are in a sense leveling an accusation at God of either neglect or incompetence.
Not long ago, I think it was the week before Christmas last year, we went for a family walk on Black Down, which we had never been to before. It was freezing and muddy, but we badly wanted air and to get out of the Christmas mayhem. It went pretty well at first, and we jollied the kids along to get them to quit complaining of the cold. Eventually they started to take an interest in the ice shards around the puddles, collecting them and running with ice in their pockets through clumps of gorse and heather.
There are lots of paths, and Daniel chose a loop. Up to a certain point I was perfectly confident, but then we started getting colder. I was certain the car park should be just over the next rise. It wasn’t. Then Anastasia went in a puddle and got her socks wet. She began to melt down. Reuben, my 3-year-old, starts to wail. ARE YOU SURE we are going in the right direction? We walk for another half mile carrying howling children. ARE YOU REALLY SURE? Yes. My husband is sure. I gritted my teeth and disbelieved my husband the rest of the way while carrying howling children. It turns out he was right. We got to the car park in the almost dark. I was totally fine while it was light and the kids were having fun, but I didn’t trust my husband’s sense of direction as the kids started up with miseries, the temperature dropped, and the walk got harder. As it happens, I had purchased him a compass for Christmas, for my own reassurance entirely. He probably doesn’t need it.
You can sympathize, I imagine, with my fears. If you are going to walk a mile in the cold carrying heavy children, you don’t want to discover that actually you have a forty-minute walk back in the other direction. If you doubt that a car is at the end of the trail, it will lead to a lot of worry and mental turmoil. It is really important for your state of mind that this path goes somewhere, that you are going to get to the car, and that beyond is home and hot chocolate! That knowledge makes the effort worth it.
The reason we often lose our joy because of our trials is that we don’t believe we are going in the right direction. We think because it’s hard we must have taken a wrong turning. We point out to God that we didn’t sign up for the icy winds part, and Lord where is the car? I need it to be here now! The solution to this doubt is remembering first that you are in the presence of God, He is the navigator, and then to plead like the man said to Jesus in the gospels, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”
Thankfully, our quavering doubtfulness and complaints do not affect God's reliability. It is not the quality of our faith that makes a difference to our destination. It is the quality of the One we trust. Just like my doubt of Daniel didn’t change the location of the car, thankfully! Being doubtful of God’s purposes doesn’t mean that we lose our glorious destination, but it does make the journey worse. It is possible for the journey to be a joyful one, even in the trouble and the hardship, yes, and even in the deepest pain, because God is with you, and your future is certain. Joy in hardship is a testimony to the reality of our certain hope and our present fullness now. In Romans it says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” This kind of joy comes from faith, and this kind of faith is the evidence to a watching world of the things we don’t yet see.
So one way we lose our joy is not believing God in our circumstances. And now for the more uncomfortable reason - guilt. It is possible to be like a guilty child avoiding God’s presence. One of my sons always makes his guilt quite clear to me because he is the one hiding under the table. He knows that my presence is going to be uncomfortable after he has scribbled on the wall or hit his sister. He also knows that I won’t let him get away with it. In the same way, the Bible says that God disciplines those He loves, which means that when there is something in the life of His child that needs to change, God will not allow that child to experience joy in His presence until it does.
Now we can be joyful and imperfect, and God deals with things in our lives little by little. We don’t need to worry and dig around in our own hearts in the dark with a candle, feeling nebulously guilty. When God is shows us something that needs to change, it is like those moments when all of a sudden the sun glares through your window without warning and shows you, without any doubt whatsoever, all the smeary hand prints your children made. You know what to do. There are only two options: shut the curtains or clean the windows. (Actually, there is a third: sit there feeling depressed by the dirt and doing nothing.)
The key to keeping joy as a Christian when God shines His light on some area of life that you haven’t seen before is to say right away, “Yes, Lord, that’s a mess. Forgive me, and please clean it up!” That is what it means to confess our sins. It is simply saying, “Yes, Lord, it is what you call it; please take it away.” Confessing like this right away means your joy and fellowship with God is back all the way right away! Just like the marriage advice I was given. Restore the relationship now before anything else happens. (Sins don't travel in singles.) Don't sit staring at the dirt and feeling miserable, and don’t shut the curtains. God will clean it up, but you have to let Him.
I remember my grandfather speaking about this to students, and my father preaching about it. I knew the concept well, and I thought that knowing it somehow meant I was doing it. I was so wrong. I remember as a teenager the time when I first experienced the need to make things right really powerfully. My sister and I were very different, and she bothered me. I didn’t want to do stuff with her, her presence annoyed me all the time through no real fault of her own, but of course I was sure it must be her problem. This went on for a few years. I remember the time when God showed me with complete certainty that I was the problem, that I was unloving, unkind, selfish, and rude. The picture of myself that I hadn’t seen before was so overwhelming that I cried my eyes out and asked God and my sister to forgive me. I remember the feeling right after of the joy almost indescribable. I wasn’t stuck being like that horrible thing I just saw. It was all gone, and in its place was joy. I wanted to run around and make everyone see how wonderful it was.
I would like to say I learned my lesson perfectly, but of course I didn’t. So many times God has shone His light into some cupboard of my life, and it goes something like this:
“Look at that cupboard.”
“Lord, everyone has a cupboard like that.”
“It’s filthy and full of dirty rags and spiders.”
“I am sure it is not that bad.”
“It is.”
“They were my grandmother’s rags.”
Penetrating silence.
“I might need them later.”
“They need to go.”
(Loud whistling, plug ears, avoid going near cupboard.)
Really it’s all pride, pride getting in the way of joy. God doesn’t show us our faults to condemn us; He shows us because He loves us and wants us grow more and more like Him. We don’t have to do anything. He does it for us. Psalm 51 says, “Create it me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” It is God that does the cleaning and the renewing. Again it says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” David wrote this prayer after he committed adultery and murder. He had lost his joy because he had damaged his relationship with God. He wants to be clean and to be restored to the joyful relationship he had before. When we know in our hearts that we have done something wrong, the temptation is to feel bad and try to forget about it, or to sort of acknowledge it but with plenty of excuses, but the road back to joy is to call it what God calls it, whatever it is, without excuse, first to God and then if necessary to others involved.
Don’t think that general confession at church is all that’s needed. Acknowledging you are generally not perfect doesn’t tell God whether you agree with Him about any specific wrong in your life. Let God wash you, and you will be restored to joy.
Christian joy is the wonderful result of a restored relationship, new birth, being in God’s presence, and having the Holy Spirit in you. Those who belong to God have access to this no matter what they are going through. You can lose it through doubting God’s good purposes in your circumstances and also through letting your wrongs pile up and not acknowledging them to God right away and asking His forgiveness specifically. Prioritize your relationship with God, trust Him, remind yourself of His kindness, and make things right.
"Those things didn’t cause us to lose our joy the presence of God. We lost it before that, and we replaced it with a fake, a joy that is really only moderate happiness in circumstances being how we want them, which of course is rare."
Joy. Joy is my topic for this morning and a good thing to dwell on at this time of year. Today I want to talk about Christian joy. We will look at some of the things the Bible says about joy, some of the reasons we lose it, and how to regain it.
I wanted to talk about this because in my life I can honestly say that the impact of just a few people really living lives of deep joy in all circumstances has changed my entire family. It started with my grandfather, who learned these lessons after he became a Christian. His joy had a profound impact on all of his children, and the trickle went from there to all of his descendants, even down to the multitude of great-grandkids.
Joy is powerful. I came to faith at the ripe old age of four, and I was never tempted to walk away, because I knew the reality of true joy. I saw it in my family, the joy of being right with God, the joy of forgiveness. I have lost my joy plenty of times, but it’s been restored again and again. I have tested what my grandpa taught me from the Bible so many times and found it true. Today I am reminding myself of things I need to hear on a daily basis!
So what is this joy? When we talk about joy in normal life, it is usually accompanying something more special than just a walk on a nice day. We experience joy at a wedding or a birth, something that was lost being restored, or a long-desired healing for a person or a relationship miraculously taking place. Joy is wonderful. If you think about it, joy is most often talked about in the context of relationships, either new ones gained with birth and marriage, or restoration, healing for those we love, or a reconciliation.
Christian joy is about all of those things combined. In fact, salvation is described in the Bible as a birth, a marriage, a healing, a restoration, and a reconciliation all together! There are not enough ways to describe the amazing nature of what truly happens to us when we believe in Jesus Christ and trust Him to save us. God is telling us to look, look, see what is happening, be overjoyed. When we trust in Jesus, God says to us, just as he said to Jesus, “You are my beloved child; in you I am well pleased.”
This, from the God of the universe, the God who made every atom and designed every living thing. He says this of you if you believe and trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection on your behalf. Can you even fathom what an honor that is? This the personal love of a God who is eternal, who always has been and who always will be, and in comparison to whom the universe is small. This is the God whom we were made to love and enjoy forever. It is this lasting, personal, ever-filling relationship that we as humans were designed for, and the restoration of this relationship is the basis of deep abiding joy.
I hope you remember a time or times in your life when this kind of joy has been present, perhaps overwhelming? Many of you remember when you first believed, and the weight of guilt fell off, and all you knew was complete acceptance and joy in God’s presence. That kind of moment is a wonderful reminder of the reality of God’s work in our lives. It is a testimony of God’s work.
What else can we learn from the Bible about joy? Psalm 16 says, “In your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” In Galatians we learn that joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit. Joy is a mark of being in God’s presence, and joy is a mark of having the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. This is the God we serve, the God who brings joy. Not only that, but the joy He brings should be deep-abiding, and it should not change because of our circumstances, because God does not change, and He never leaves us.
In Romans it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If nothing can separate us from the love of God, then nothing can separate us from the joy of His presence. He is with us even in the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23). In fact, joy should be a motivator in the midst of terrible times. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus Himself endured death on the cross, for what? For the joy. The joy at doing the will of His Father and the joy of what that would accomplish; the joy of His relationship with His people. We can be a part of His joy. Joy doesn’t depart during hard times.
It is really important here to distinguish joy from happiness. We know that Jesus wasn’t happy in the Garden of Gethsemene waiting for His arrest. He was in anguish on the cross. As Christians, we can experience agonizing pain, heartbreak, and loss, and we don’t need to deny the existence of these things or put on a plastic smile. But in all of these trials we have access to God Himself. Often we think of God as having given us things like forgiveness and the hope of heaven. These are wonderful things, but God is not content with this—He wants to give us Himself. I heard a story once of a poverty-stricken old woman on her death bed whose words were, “All this and Christ, too.” “In Your presence is the fullness of joy.”
Christian joy is brought about by a restored relationship to God, being forgiven and brought into God’s presence where there is fullness of joy. You can’t get a fuller joy that this. It is a joy that runs deep. It will stay with you through thick and thin. But does it? We see examples of this miraculous joy in the apostles who rejoiced and sang while they were in prison. We see it in people like Corrie and Betsie ten Boom, the Dutch women who protected Jews and who thanked God for everything and were able to praise him even in a Nazi concentration camp.
But do we have this kind of joy? Slowly, without realizing it, we often lose that initial joy. We might get it back at intervals when God gets our attention with His love for us during a hard time, when He answers a prayer or something like that, but often the months or years in between are a slog with little joy. We notice the lack of joy and are quick to look for ways to fix it. If you are like me, you might look for a change in circumstances. You think it must be problems getting in the way. We might start feeling as though nothing would be wrong if weren’t for all the dumb things other people do, so we start to resent them as the cause of our joylessness.
Often it goes this way at church. We have lost our joy in God’s presence, so we start to focus on all the little things that bug us in a service or a church get-together. I have done this. I start noticing things I don’t like in worship songs or other mishaps in a service. If I am joyful, I usually forget it as fast as I notice it, or, if not, I at least can have a laugh. But if I am not joyful, I can begin to resent those things as messing things up my time, ruining my joy, making time with God difficult. But we know that nothing can make our time with God impossible, nothing can separate us from His love—future, past, angels, demons, death, danger, whatever—the Bible says so. Can a service with mishaps or your least favorite songs, or even, heaven forbid, poorly made tea at fellowship hour separate us from His love? Clearly not. But if little things that other people do fill us with angst and aggravation and we lose our joy, something has gone wrong. Those things didn’t cause us to lose our joy the presence of God. We lost it before that, and we replaced it with a fake, a "joy" that is really only moderate happiness in circumstances being just how we want them, which of course is rare.
The best marriage advice I have ever been given was this: If you do something wrong, if you have an argument or are unkind or unthoughtful or do anything that has upset your relationship with your spouse, make it right, right away, period. Don’t go to bed, don’t go to work, don’t let people into the house, until your relationship is restored and you can honestly say you are in good fellowship. This builds trust. You don’t have to worry that your spouse is going to work to vent about you. There is no doghouse. If you do this, then your spouse can trust that having a good relationship all the time is of first importance to you, and vice versa. The joy you experienced being with your spouse at the beginning will not continue if either of you start harboring resentment about little things that were never made right. This is how you keep a good marriage good, and this how you make it better. There are usually two categories of reasons for not enjoying being in the presence of your spouse: either he has wronged you, or you have wronged him, and his presence brings that guilt to mind, and you would rather it didn’t. Often it is both.
How does this connect to Christian joy? Deep-lasting joy is found in our relationship with God. If we lose the joy, that means something has gone wrong in that relationship. Just like in marriage, there are two ways to lose the joyful fellowship in God’s presence you had when you first believed. Believing that God has let you down in some way is the first option, and being uncomfortable in His presence because actually there are wrong things in your life is the second. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed, the first thing they did when they heard God coming was hide. They lost their joy in His presence.
What does it look like to believe that God has wronged you or that He is unreliable? I think it is easy to not realize we are doing this. As Christians, we aren’t allowed to say God is wrong, except for in in our worst moments when nobody is looking! I grew up in a Christian home and knew all the right answers: of course God is good, of course He is powerful and knows everything, but I don’t like what is happening to me. Discontent raises its hackles in my soul. I don’t like my lot, the day is wet, I am behind on laundry, and I just spilled my coffee all over the only pair of clean trousers I had, and probably a small child will step in the puddle and start spreading it all over the house. I don’t feel like I am blaming God; I am just being human, right? Just feeling put upon and resenting my little world being jostled around.
In the Bible, it says that trials help us become mature and complete, not lacking anything. Often we forget God’s good purposes in our petty first-world trials the most, because with agonizing trials (illness, tragedy), we feel our helplessness more acutely and are more likely to cling to our loving God just like a child will cling to her parents when she is suffering pain. But with petty things, we often struggle to accept God’s place in it all. Urrg, my washing machine is leaking! (You know, that expensive thing that I can afford to use to wash our gazzilions of clothes with.) All those things that bother and annoy are opportunities, opportunities to grow, opportunities to believe God because He says He is using these things (it’s all part of the “all things” that He is working together for your good) for your maturity, and when you get the eternal perspective on your botherations, they are actually amazing opportunities to laugh! When we don’t trust that God is using our problems for our good, we are in a sense leveling an accusation at God of either neglect or incompetence.
Not long ago, I think it was the week before Christmas last year, we went for a family walk on Black Down, which we had never been to before. It was freezing and muddy, but we badly wanted air and to get out of the Christmas mayhem. It went pretty well at first, and we jollied the kids along to get them to quit complaining of the cold. Eventually they started to take an interest in the ice shards around the puddles, collecting them and running with ice in their pockets through clumps of gorse and heather.
There are lots of paths, and Daniel chose a loop. Up to a certain point I was perfectly confident, but then we started getting colder. I was certain the car park should be just over the next rise. It wasn’t. Then Anastasia went in a puddle and got her socks wet. She began to melt down. Reuben, my 3-year-old, starts to wail. ARE YOU SURE we are going in the right direction? We walk for another half mile carrying howling children. ARE YOU REALLY SURE? Yes. My husband is sure. I gritted my teeth and disbelieved my husband the rest of the way while carrying howling children. It turns out he was right. We got to the car park in the almost dark. I was totally fine while it was light and the kids were having fun, but I didn’t trust my husband’s sense of direction as the kids started up with miseries, the temperature dropped, and the walk got harder. As it happens, I had purchased him a compass for Christmas, for my own reassurance entirely. He probably doesn’t need it.
You can sympathize, I imagine, with my fears. If you are going to walk a mile in the cold carrying heavy children, you don’t want to discover that actually you have a forty-minute walk back in the other direction. If you doubt that a car is at the end of the trail, it will lead to a lot of worry and mental turmoil. It is really important for your state of mind that this path goes somewhere, that you are going to get to the car, and that beyond is home and hot chocolate! That knowledge makes the effort worth it.
The reason we often lose our joy because of our trials is that we don’t believe we are going in the right direction. We think because it’s hard we must have taken a wrong turning. We point out to God that we didn’t sign up for the icy winds part, and Lord where is the car? I need it to be here now! The solution to this doubt is remembering first that you are in the presence of God, He is the navigator, and then to plead like the man said to Jesus in the gospels, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”
Thankfully, our quavering doubtfulness and complaints do not affect God's reliability. It is not the quality of our faith that makes a difference to our destination. It is the quality of the One we trust. Just like my doubt of Daniel didn’t change the location of the car, thankfully! Being doubtful of God’s purposes doesn’t mean that we lose our glorious destination, but it does make the journey worse. It is possible for the journey to be a joyful one, even in the trouble and the hardship, yes, and even in the deepest pain, because God is with you, and your future is certain. Joy in hardship is a testimony to the reality of our certain hope and our present fullness now. In Romans it says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” This kind of joy comes from faith, and this kind of faith is the evidence to a watching world of the things we don’t yet see.
So one way we lose our joy is not believing God in our circumstances. And now for the more uncomfortable reason - guilt. It is possible to be like a guilty child avoiding God’s presence. One of my sons always makes his guilt quite clear to me because he is the one hiding under the table. He knows that my presence is going to be uncomfortable after he has scribbled on the wall or hit his sister. He also knows that I won’t let him get away with it. In the same way, the Bible says that God disciplines those He loves, which means that when there is something in the life of His child that needs to change, God will not allow that child to experience joy in His presence until it does.
Now we can be joyful and imperfect, and God deals with things in our lives little by little. We don’t need to worry and dig around in our own hearts in the dark with a candle, feeling nebulously guilty. When God is shows us something that needs to change, it is like those moments when all of a sudden the sun glares through your window without warning and shows you, without any doubt whatsoever, all the smeary hand prints your children made. You know what to do. There are only two options: shut the curtains or clean the windows. (Actually, there is a third: sit there feeling depressed by the dirt and doing nothing.)
The key to keeping joy as a Christian when God shines His light on some area of life that you haven’t seen before is to say right away, “Yes, Lord, that’s a mess. Forgive me, and please clean it up!” That is what it means to confess our sins. It is simply saying, “Yes, Lord, it is what you call it; please take it away.” Confessing like this right away means your joy and fellowship with God is back all the way right away! Just like the marriage advice I was given. Restore the relationship now before anything else happens. (Sins don't travel in singles.) Don't sit staring at the dirt and feeling miserable, and don’t shut the curtains. God will clean it up, but you have to let Him.
I remember my grandfather speaking about this to students, and my father preaching about it. I knew the concept well, and I thought that knowing it somehow meant I was doing it. I was so wrong. I remember as a teenager the time when I first experienced the need to make things right really powerfully. My sister and I were very different, and she bothered me. I didn’t want to do stuff with her, her presence annoyed me all the time through no real fault of her own, but of course I was sure it must be her problem. This went on for a few years. I remember the time when God showed me with complete certainty that I was the problem, that I was unloving, unkind, selfish, and rude. The picture of myself that I hadn’t seen before was so overwhelming that I cried my eyes out and asked God and my sister to forgive me. I remember the feeling right after of the joy almost indescribable. I wasn’t stuck being like that horrible thing I just saw. It was all gone, and in its place was joy. I wanted to run around and make everyone see how wonderful it was.
I would like to say I learned my lesson perfectly, but of course I didn’t. So many times God has shone His light into some cupboard of my life, and it goes something like this:
“Look at that cupboard.”
“Lord, everyone has a cupboard like that.”
“It’s filthy and full of dirty rags and spiders.”
“I am sure it is not that bad.”
“It is.”
“They were my grandmother’s rags.”
Penetrating silence.
“I might need them later.”
“They need to go.”
(Loud whistling, plug ears, avoid going near cupboard.)
Really it’s all pride, pride getting in the way of joy. God doesn’t show us our faults to condemn us; He shows us because He loves us and wants us grow more and more like Him. We don’t have to do anything. He does it for us. Psalm 51 says, “Create it me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” It is God that does the cleaning and the renewing. Again it says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” David wrote this prayer after he committed adultery and murder. He had lost his joy because he had damaged his relationship with God. He wants to be clean and to be restored to the joyful relationship he had before. When we know in our hearts that we have done something wrong, the temptation is to feel bad and try to forget about it, or to sort of acknowledge it but with plenty of excuses, but the road back to joy is to call it what God calls it, whatever it is, without excuse, first to God and then if necessary to others involved.
Don’t think that general confession at church is all that’s needed. Acknowledging you are generally not perfect doesn’t tell God whether you agree with Him about any specific wrong in your life. Let God wash you, and you will be restored to joy.
Christian joy is the wonderful result of a restored relationship, new birth, being in God’s presence, and having the Holy Spirit in you. Those who belong to God have access to this no matter what they are going through. You can lose it through doubting God’s good purposes in your circumstances and also through letting your wrongs pile up and not acknowledging them to God right away and asking His forgiveness specifically. Prioritize your relationship with God, trust Him, remind yourself of His kindness, and make things right.
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