Let's see if I can collaborate all these thoughts...
This morning's been an odd morning for me. A fun one but a hard one all at the same time. After a sleepless night, I got to spend the morning laughing with the people in my cohort. I love how the different personalities have mushed together so nicely over the past nine months. There's something about community that always excites me. But we ended the morning with an award ceremony for the Michael Hendrickson scholarship award. I'd venture to say that the majority of us had no idea who Michael Hendrickson was until we had the opportunity to sit and listen to his father tell the story of losing their son. When asked to describe his son, what did he share? His testimony. In a room full of people who have so many different beliefs, it was powerful to me to hear him speak about the turning point in his son's life being when he found Christ. What was more powerful to me than that was to hear my professor, whom several of us have been praying for all year, award the scholarship to a girl with "a passion for youth development, a passion for camp, and someone that has exhibited Christ-like behavior". Here's the thing: I get that my teacher might not be walking daily in a relationship with Christ but people can recognize Christ-like character. People know what it looks like and it shakes me to see people catch hold of that. There is power in the name of Jesus....
I can't think of anybody that deserved this award more than sweet Maddie. I'm grateful for the passion with which she lives her life and the impact she's made on me over the past three years of college. We have days when we drive each other nuts, but she's a blessing through and through. Living together next year is going to be a massive adventure. I left this morning thinking, though, about how much of an impact my life has (or has not) made this year. Have I been someone that has exhibited Christ-like character to my cohort this year? Or have I been living too quietly? I made jokes one day about how someone told me that he always forgets I'm around... I made jokes but I also took that to heart. Is my life being lived loudly for the Gospel of Christ? Growing up my parents never cared too much about me making the highest grades. They would always just ask me this: "Did you do your best?" and then reaffirm me of how proud they are of me. Today I know that I haven't done my best this year... I've spent too many days being too quiet. That's not like me... and it really isn't okay.
Last night I read about joy and how the battle in our lives is against our joy. If you think about it, it holds a lot of truth. Anyone who's grown up in the church can tell you that happiness is to come and go but joy is something that we are called to have always. The joy of the Lord. Eldredge said this about joy:
"Joy as a category seemed... irrelevant. Nice but unessential. Like owning a hot tub. And distant too. The hot tub is in Fiji. Wouldn't it be nice? Ain't going to happen. Life's not really about joy. I've got all this stuff that has to get done. The mail is stacking up, and i haven't paid the bills in two months. The Service Engine Soon light came on in the Honda. Joy? Life's about surviving-- and getting a little pleasure. That's what seemed true. Really now-- how much do you think about joy? Do you see it as essential to your life, something God insists on?"
I consider myself a generally pretty joyful person but this morning I've been thinking a lot about what it means to live joyfully when you feel you've missed an opportunity or you know someone feels wronged by you or people you know are hurting and you can do nothing to help them. Most days I wish I were better with words. Today I'm praying for the destruction and the hurt across Alabama. Today my soul is torn at the thought of people being hurt, in a multitude of ways and situations. And I hate that there's not much else I can do. But we are called to live with joy through all of that. No, that was wrong. It's not that we're called to live with joy as if it's some sort of obligation. The truth is that we are allowed to live with joy in the midst of strife. This morning as I drove in silence and prayed I flipped through a stack of verses I keep in my car and found this from 2nd Corinthians:
"As the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows..."
God has plans. Big and mighty. Last night I also read in Jeremiah 16 about how the Lord's plans don't always look like the best thing but they are. We know that. Psalm 16 keeps coming back to my heart today. Particularly this:
"In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
What a joy, what a blessing, that each of us are able to live each day in His presence and thereby have access to the fullness of joy. That's the beauty of the Gospel-- not only that we get to live in Heaven one day but that we get to live in the here and now walking hand in hand with Christ. All throughout the new testament we see Him call us to "joy complete". I got a chance the other day to worship with an old friend and we both teared up as we sang so passionately the words "I've got the joy, I've got the joy... joyful joyful, Lord we adore Thee." That joy is the same today as it was on Tuesday, even when the world is in a state of chaos. Joyfully, Lord, we still adore Thee. This post has gotten excessively long and I'm not sure it made much sense so I'll leave you with these words (again by Eldredge):
"But joy is the point. I know it is. God says that joy is our strength. 'The joy of the LORD is your strength' (Nehemiah 8:10). I think, My strength? I don't even think of it as my occasional boost. But yes, now that I give it some thought, I can see that when I have felt joy I have felt more alive than at any other time in my life. Pull up a memory of your best moments. The day at the beach. Your eighth birthday. Remember how you felt. Now think what life would be like if you felt that on a regular basis. Maybe that's what being strengthened by joy feels like. It would be good."
It would be good... it is good. He is good, indeed.
-John Eldredge: Walking with God
No comments:
Post a Comment