Oh to Joy

"Each heart knows its own bitterness..."

This world sucks.

Why can't life just be easy? Why can't things just go right? Why does it seem like any time we finally to a point in our day to day experience where find happiness, joy, love, where things finally start looking like they're going to be amazing for once, there just has to be some sort of balance where life completely and utterly reeks. One week of joy, one month of pain and misery and frustration. And endless cycle that just absolutely sucks.

Sound familiar?

Have you ever stopped to think about the concept of darkness? What it truly is, its nature, the hows and ifs and whys. I find it interesting that we have developed the phrase, "swallowed up by the darkness," as if darkness itself had the power to overthrow the light. But I now present an interesting concept...the fact that darkness has no such power whatsoever. In reality, how is it we measure darkness but by the absence of light? For that is exactly what the dark is: the absence of light. Likewise, what is evil but an absence and utter abandonment of good? What makes a demon a demon, compared to an angel? Are they not, or at least were they not, exactly the same creature, one choosing to wholly reject the love of its creator and the other fully embracing it? The list goes on and on...I could probably write a book on such concepts...but really I'm just babbling.

This is not really my point.

How many of us have felt burden, hardship, abandonment, despair, pain that makes you wish you could simply reach in and rip your heart to shreds because at least if you're going down doing so wouldn't be so slow and agonizing? Absolutely Broken. Trapped in the tunnel...

I'm talking about sorrow.

"Each heart knows its own bitterness..."

We all feel it. We all hate it. But why? Why, why, why must we be confined to this endless, bitter cycle of up and down and around and around and around? Even those of us who have found the hope in the sacrifice of Jesus, we are far from exempt. I once heard a speaker who described how before we come to know Him, so often we find ourselves dealing with our troubles like we're simply plugging holes in a bursting dam, but every time we stick our finger in one spout another pops out to replace it! And so though we seem content to endlessly fill in hole after whole, we never solve the honest issue. That the dam is bursting. There is something more than surface-level instability, and the whole structure is about to explode. So we come to Jesus, and He totally restores us, from the inside out. We draw near to Him and He repairs us...but then, why do those of us who do hold so tightly and so truly to who He is and what He does feel so alone? So broken? So full of sorrow? Weren't we repaired already?

But still, this isn't really my point. I'm not here to explain away why the world is how it is and why life can be so simply miserable. Many have tried, and really what can I, by adding mere words to the cacophony already thundering, do?

So a thought to try and tie it all together...

What is sorrow, but the absence of joy?

We sense something missing, something totally askew to what the promises of our Savior hold, something that should be there, but just isn't. We know joy. We found it when we found Him. And yet, still...

Bitterness. Anger. Despair.

It just doesn't make sense.

But maybe it doesn't have to.

At least not to us.

I mean really, we believe that one Man, who lived thousands of years ago, lived, died, and by His own power rose from the dead, thereby obliterated Death, Hell, and the grave, and became the perfect sacrifice needed in order to obliterated the depravity of mankind and reconnect us with the Father. One man.

One man. Changed Everything.

Now that's just crazy. I can fully understand why someone would say that makes absolutely no sense in the slightest way imaginable.

But that's okay. Because Love is just crazy like that.

So then, where do we find this joy that is so absent that it leaves behind nothing but sorrow, nothing but that endless cycle of fleeting happiness and furious pain?

But then, I guess I already answered that question.

We know joy. We found it when we found Him.

And what hope we have in that!!

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12

And to think that our hope cannot be crushed by any power that has ever been or ever will be!

Yes, this world sucks. It's messed up, breaking apart and it feels like it's going everything it can to take us with it. But no matter the pain, no matter the heartache, no matter the mistakes, we do have joy.

My very existence, every single minute aspect of my life itself, is completely and utterly an illustration of how the love God has for His people so far overpowers the devastation sin can wreak when we make mistakes, when the world is falling apart. I am the very result of a mistake my parents made twenty years ago. I was a prime opportunity for sin to inject hopelessness, pain, and grief, and to potentially destroy the lives of two of God's beloved. And yet now that I have come to realize this truth I can see that every blessing, every time I have been spared, and every time I have not, every heartache I have survived, and each one I still bear, every trial I have endured, and those I still have yet to, every moment I even draw another breath, and even when I cannot, it is the direct result of God's unimaginable, irrefutable, undeniable Love totally shattering any hope for the havoc and pain sin so greatly wishes to dish out to have any sort of place for those He so desperately loves and purses and those who purse Him in return.

And if you think that's not something to be joyful about, then I cannot help you. Because I know for me, I could not be the man I am today, could not be filled with the passion and insatiable desire to love and be loved without the hope that this has brought me, without that joy. Without that Love. What hope I have to know that the very purpose of my life is to be a very real picture of the Love God has for His people in their darkest moments, and the hope and joy they can and still do have!

We just have to remember.

"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
~ John 3:16

When the tunnel is closing in around us, someone has already pierced the darkness.

"And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. "
1 John 5:14

When we stumble and fall, someone has already borne our wounds.

"We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance." Romans 5:3

When the decadence of the world is trying so desperately to tear us down, someone has already repaired us and given us a home in an impenetrable fortress.

"O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge."
Psalm 62:8

When those around us cause us pain, headaches, heartaches, tears,someone has loved us beyond any ability of the human mind to imagine.

"The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives." Psalm 37:23

When we feel like we simply cannot go on, someone has already carried our burdens, and placed others around us to encourage us, drag us back to our feet, and support us along the path.

"We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy..." Colossians 1:11

When we want nothing more than to curl up in a ball and die, someone has already destroyed Death and all his friends.

"Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying." Romans 12:12

We just have to remember: we have hope. We have joy. Joy beyond any capacity to be contained.

"Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. " 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Remember that joy. Remember that hope.

Will we never feel sorrow? Doubt it. Will we never feel pain, heartache? Not in this life. You're naive to think otherwise and I'd be a liar of the worst kind to say otherwise

But because of the pure joy that already consumes our hearts, we cannot and will not be consumed by that sorrow and bitterness.

As long as we remember.

And as a last little tidbit, I would like to add that you are never alone. I am here. I have no doubt that there are those around you who are truly with you and would drop anything and everything to help you through anything you need. And He is here. Always. So just ask any of us. All of us.

And just remember that hope.

"Each heart knows its own bitterness...and no one else can share it's joy." Prov 14:10

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