When the year first started, I thought it was the Year of Prayer. “I’m going to learn to pray better, God! More effectively! From Your Word!”
Blah, blah, blah. Sometimes I wonder if, to God, I sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
“No,” He gently said. “This, Kirsten, is the year of joy.”
I didn’t understand it when He spoke it to my heart. Slowly He has led me and taught me- unwrapping the profound beauty of this truth. John Piper’s book, “When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy” has helped me so much in understanding what God teaches us in His Word about joy.
How essential joy is! Why would anyone who does not know Christ want to know Him if I don’t have real, authentic joy? Why do I expect them to want what I have if I don’t want it?
I have to fight for joy. Every minute of every day. The enemy of my soul will desperately try and keep me from having it. A friend of mine recently shared how when she first read that Christ had come to give us freedom in John 10:10, she did not realize that there is a price to pay for this freedom. She did not realize the intense struggles she would have to go through- the pain. But...the deeper she allowed herself to experience the pain- to truly share in Christ’s suffering- the more deeply she has been able to receive and experience His gift of JOY.
And yet, with all this said, joy is not something I can “get” for myself.
Joy is a gift from God, plain and simple (Galatians 5:22). No worldly achievement or technique can “achieve” it. A gift just like out salvation, just like each step of our sanctification that makes us more and more like Christ, just like each thought that is renewed and each wall that is taken down in our hearts and each idol that is surrendered. Joy is a gift- a fruit of the Spirit. All you can do is recieve it.
Joy is a gift that can’t be stored or hoarded. You experience it, or you lose it. The only thing you can do is relish in it when it comes. I spent much time trying to figure out how to “get it” on my timetable, and then how to “keep it”. No dice.
That was where my next problem came. I don’t feel like I deserve it. So how can accept it? So, for a little while I tried to earn it. I still do that- it takes time to break down decades of habits.
“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him”. This is the way John Piper says it. Oh, the depth and beauty of His Love and His Ways! It makes God happy when I accept the gift of His Joy! It brings joy to His heart!
He wants me to accept it not because I deserve it, but because He gave it.
And, He knows that as He pours the abundance of His joy into my heart, it will spill out on those around me. It will allow them to see Him in a way that my words and effort never could.
He truly is the Giver of all good things.
