Skip to main content

Holy Joy!


            How does joy become holy?  It all depends on the object of your joy.  If your joy is about having a certain experience, receiving a certain gift, getting a certain reaction, then you will or will not have joy based on whether your expectations are met.  Presto-magic joy is achievable under certain circumstances.

            Holy joy is an altogether different experience.  If your joy is found in the thing that cannot be taken away from you, you can have joy in every circumstance you encounter this Christmas season.  Let’s say you are stuck in the airport for seventy-two hours while your dream vacations melts away.  That is definitely not a joyful thought.  You are hungry, tired, broke, disappointed beyond measure.  You can experience holy joy.  This comes from making the object of your joy the reality that no matter how this situation plays out, you will be stretched and drawn closer to God through your prayers and hopes for the resolution you want and acceptance that His way has to be better even when you can’t see it.  It is totally possible to find joy in hardships.

            Paul’s most joyful letter to the church in Philippi was written from his prison cell—now that has got to be worse than missing days on your dream vacation and being stuck in the airport for 72 hours.  I’m sure that Paul, being human, had a few tears and laments about his situation from time to time.  Those releases led him to joy as he surrendered to whatever God had prepared for him.  Holy joy cannot be created by human effort.  It is the total surrender of trust and peace that God knows what He is doing and feeling blessed for what you have.

            Sometimes it is hard to see the goodness you have been given when you feel like a prisoner in an airport.  In fact, stopping to realize how much worse your situation could be is helpful toward moving into holy joy.  When you feel like a prisoner, think about the innocent people who are literally prisoners, like Paul.  Realize that your situation isn’t as bad as it could be.  Think about your fellow disappointed passengers and how some of them are dealing with health issues you are not, or others have a fear of flying which is being prolonged through the delay.

            The birth of Christmas was full of joy.  It was holy joy.  There were tired pilgrims who were met with overcrowded accommodations forcing them to seek shelter in a cave used for animals.  What joy they discovered when they could make the feeding trough—the manger—a cradle for their baby.  The joy was shared when some dirty shepherds burst into their private place with tales of angels and directions and good news for all men.  They found unexpected joy in the old faces of Simeon and Anna when they were privileged to see their Savior, for whom they prayed, as a baby.  They likely felt joy when they realized the generous gifts they were given in Bethlehem by the Wise Men were exactly what they needed to sojourn in Egypt for the years they needed to be away until Herod the Great died. 

            Holy joy filled the Christmas scene most vividly in the transformation of the shepherds.  Luke 2:20 describes them: The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

            It’s a season for joy, but when you experience holy joy your life is transformed.

Copyright © 2013.  Deborah R. Newman www.teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Pilgrimage that Started with Tears

                Who would think I would shed tears deciding to set out on a wonderful journey that I have longed to take for many years?   Before I was ready to fully accept God’s invitation for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, I had to journey to a place of agreement between what my soul wanted and what the Lord wanted for me.   For years I have been declining opportunities to travel to Israel—not because I didn’t want to go but because I wanted to go with my husband by my side.   I know that God could have arranged that for me, but instead He asked me to accept that He wanted me to be willing to go and leave everything behind.   When I was asked to make a decision about going on a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, God gave me this verse in answer to my prayer -- Debi, observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are cr...

The Effects of the Holy Spirit

The Effects of the Holy Spirit               Can you imagine that the very Spirit of God is given to humans who believe in God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection?  Just thinking about the Holy Spirit makes me realize that I can do better.  I am not left to my own resources when it comes to praying, having faith, obeying God, doing what He asks me to do.                 No one understands the depth of sin’s effect on a soul better than God.  Every action He takes has been to reduce the effect of evil that was unleashed into our world when sin was merged into His perfect universe.  We never saw it coming. Even Adam and Eve did not see what hit them.  God has counteracted with the effect of faith after sin by enabling sinners to be affected by His ho...

One Year

            One week, one month, and now one year has passed since my world was turned up-side-down.   At first time felt like an eternity, each day the reality that my beloved husband was no longer with me here on earth drug on and felt like it would never resolve.   Now that a significant amount of time has passed, it doesn’t seem possible that we have lived through one whole year without him.   How did we get here?   Where have we been?   How did the earth revolve completely around the sun?   We are surviving.   We are grateful.   We have had a lot of help from heaven and from earth.             I have discovered more intimately how death is a major spiritual formation in our lives.   Whether we are deeply spiritual or not, facing death forces us to consider spiritual realities.   Our souIs are opened to a deeper u...