Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?
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| Walking in the Gorge on a really HOT day in August |
I think one of the hardest lessons to learn is finding joy. Most people associate joy with happy feelings. I’ve learned this past year that it’s not always going to be happy feelings because those fade so quickly. The best way I can describe joy is in this passage from Scripture:
Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls—
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The LORD God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills.
Habakkuk 3:17-19
So joy means that even though things aren’t going so well, we can rejoice and have that joy because Jesus is our Saviour; because He gives us strength; because He has taken our sins away; because He is always there.
Please don’t think you can’t have joy in happy times, too. You can! Ordinary joy is just hard to come by sometimes if you’re not looking in the right place. I found it this summer when Leon and I were separated in the long three months prior to getting married. It was especially difficult because we had to be apart just before coming together in marriage. The passage from Habakkuk describes exactly how I felt and how I was able to find joy in living every day.
And in case you were wondering, Leon and I did have a very joyful reunion when he returned to the US!
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