The Present Inaccessibility of Indescribable Joy

Note:  I know that this is a longer post than normal for me, but I encourage all those who may be struggling with joy this day to read this blog in its entirety – persevere to the end.

After having written a book titled Indescribable Joy, one might expect that the author of said book would have the subject firmly in his grasp.  Unfortunately, writing a book that outlines the principles of joy from the book of Philippians – God’s own primer on the subject – does not make the author immune from the things that tend to rob us of that prize.  Quite recently, I have suffered myself with being able to find the joy that I speak about in my book.  It was rough there for a few days.  I hate to admit that I have not been following my own advice, but over the last week or so joy of almost any kind – much less indescribable joy – had been somewhat inaccessible.  I am not exactly sure what that makes me, but hypocrite is probably the first word that comes to mind.  How can I write a book about joy and so completely fail in maintaining it myself?  But God has helped me through that and I thought it might be helpful to share with you how I overcame it.

There are, of course, reasons… and then there are excuses… and many times the difference between the two can become indistinguishably blurred; but I suppose that I can venture to offer some reasons/excuses for why joy has seemed to be allusive to me despite being a self-proclaimed (by virtue of having written a book on the subject) joy expert.  My reason/excuse for being joy deficient these days had to do with the overwhelming intersection of multiple life initiatives.  I live in four different worlds these days.  Normally, these worlds remain compartmentalized and, if anything, complement each other quite nicely.  In recent days, however, they are neither complementary nor have I been very successful at compartmentalization.  The result is a whirlwind of conflicting objectives, competing priorities, conjectural actions, and a growing fear of unsatisfactory results in all four realms (note: That last sentence sounds much more profound if you read it with a British accent).

First, there is my secular job.  I work at least 40 hours a week at a job that pays the bills and (hopefully) puts my kids through college.  It’s a great job that I hate, but I am grateful and thankful that I have been blessed with it.  Generally speaking, it stays out of the way of the other 3 worlds that I live in and is the means by which the other 3 ends are enabled.  Fortunately, there is nothing extraordinary about what is going on in that secular world right now, but as the other 3 worlds come into focus, one can imagine how proper compartmentalization can be difficult at the moment.

Then there is my writing.  Writing is one of my two great joys.  The other is preaching.  The beauty of writing is that I can do it just about any time.  When I catch a minute after eating lunch, I can write a few lines.  When I retire to my bed in the evening, I can write a few lines.  On rare occasion when I have more time available than normal, I may get the joy of writing a number of lines.  In the process, I have managed two books – the afore mentioned one on joy and one on the practicality of our faith, based on the book of James – Faith Beyond Belief: Understanding True Faith from the Book of James. Neither of these will ever make me rich and while I would strongly suggest to the reader that they purchase and read both of them (obviously I would recommend that – but in reality they are excellent resources on joy and faith), I have not invested the time and resources necessary to make them anything more than a hobby.  The purpose of that hobby, however, is not just personal enjoyment, but the fact that I can use my God-given passions, desires, and gifts to bless and edify the body of Christ.   I get my joy not in the writing itself, but in knowing that the writing may be used by God to bless others.   I am working on a third book as well, but with the demands of the other 3 worlds, I just do not currently have the time available to finish that particular project.  It’s just sitting there… waiting… calling out to be finished but not receiving its answer.  Oh… I also do the occasional blog, as you may have noticed.  Taken together, these generally satisfy my passion to write, but in recent days that calling which cannot be answered tends to be a bit disturbing – and less than satisfying.

The third of my four worlds is a fabulous start-up non-profit organization called Designs for Hope.  I will not endeavor to go into the details of what they organization does.  You are welcome and greatly encouraged to look into that one yourself and see how God is using the natural and supernatural gifts and talents of some of his people to help others of his people. I am privileged and honored to be part of the coming out of this organization as it begins its emergence from concept to reality.  That emergence is coming to a head next week with the organization’s first fully sponsored product distribution and mission trip to Uganda.  Again, I am privileged to be a part of that, but as one might imagine, the effort associated with planning and organizing such a trip can be overwhelming.  I am not the primary organizer, but even the pieces for which I am involved and responsible are not insubstantial.  I take those responsibilities very seriously.

Lastly, but by no means least, is my ministry in the church.  As an Associate Pastor of Youth and Children in a small, older, otherwise aging church that is striving to regain its vitality, one can imagine the difficulties that would be present under normal conditions.  Scare financial resources and even scarcer human resources make building a youth and children’s program from what was previously non-existent quite difficult.  Add to that the fact that the church itself is located in an area that, while still considered suburban by tradition, is growing more urban in its culture on a daily basis; and is itself struggling with issues such as commercial revitalization, declining income, and the like.  I have no doubt that God has called me (and my wife) to this church to make an impact in the community for Jesus Christ - to help this church in its revitalization efforts and to bring Christ back to the community.  To that end, this week is Vacation Bible School.  To those who have been involved in the preparation for VBS, I need not say more.  To those who have not been so involved, nothing I can say can adequately explain the effort involved – that is, if you take such an effort seriously.  I have seen churches who do not take VBS seriously and am personally appalled by it.  VBS is a very serious thing.  There will be children come through the church doors during VBS week who may NEVER come through the doors on any other occasion.  For those children, it may be the one and only time they hear the gospel the entire year.  To not take that seriously would be a grotesque abuse of stewardship.  VBS is probably the single most important evangelistic opportunity a church will have in the entire year.  Every night this week – when I should be in preparations to leave the country – I am graciously making a fool of myself in front of myriad of (hopefully) gleeful children… preparing the way, laying the foundation, and (again hopefully) opening the doors for that moment later this week when they will be invited to meet Jesus in a personal way.  This weighs heavy on my soul as a very important task.

As I said earlier, the four worlds normally do not intersect in such a way as to present too terrible a difficulty for each other.  However, the present rise in activity in at least two of the four has been causing quite the disturbance in the aggregate.  I cannot deny that together there is a level of furor that rises to near manic proportions – giving further rise to questions as to whether any of the four are being afforded their due effort and attention.  Then there is the obvious question as to why under God’s blue heavens am I taking the time out of such a taxed and fatigued schedule to write this particular blog.  The answer lies in the indubitable fact that such is necessary to maintain my sanity.  It is necessary in order for me to outline the reasons for my own failure to attain the level of joy that God desires and to remind myself how to reacquire it – and in so doing perhaps grant the reader some exhortation towards similar situations they might experience as well.  And so to help myself rediscover my joy, I took it upon myself to remind myself of some of the principles necessary to maintain joy.

I needed to remind myself of the principle of prayer.  In the frenzy of the last few weeks, I have found it quite difficult to keep up the normal schedule of spiritual disciplines and I confess that openly in repentance. I have realized in the last few days that while my prayer life has not been non-existent by any stretch of the means, during this time of increased stress my prayers have been more abbreviated in nature.  If joy truly requires communion with God, then during such times of distress one would anticipate an increase in prayer activity rather than an abridged one - and so I committed myself to be in more of a state of continual prayer than I had been in recent days.

I also needed to remind myself of the principle of purpose.  There is no doubt in my mind that the stresses of the present moment are all related to activities whose sole goal is the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is not just the anticipation of the gospel activities associated with VBS and the upcoming mission trip that should be bringing me joy.  Indeed, I find some shame in the fact that I have been having difficulty maintaining my joy when, during the last two weeks, God has graciously allowed me to participate in leading two young adults to a saving and life-altering knowledge of the gospel and experiencing new birth in Christ.  That alone should be enough to keep one’s joy at a fevered pitch for quite some time.  Indeed it was… for a day or so anyway… but then the difficulties and pressures crept back in all of their unavoidability.

Even the definition of joy that I proclaim became a reminder to me.  Joy is the state of being glad.  It is not just an emotion and it certainly is not always reactionary.  I am indeed glad for all of the things going on in my life and despite the stress they are creating I know that they will be used greatly by God (going back again to the principle of purpose) to advance his purposes.  That enables me to choose to be joyful about all that is happening even though my emotions at the moment may not be what we would call “happy.”  And so I took it upon myself to "choose" to be joyful - that is, to be grateful and glad that God was allowing me to serve in such capacities - although the emotion of it was still no where to be found.

Because of that that I remind myself of yet another of the principles of joy – the principle of perseverance.  I may not feel the joy, but I know that through perseverance, joy is present.  It cannot be denied that the last several weeks have been very difficult.  It likewise must be acknowledged that the upcoming weeks will also be equally difficult.  But as Paul encouraged us, so we must encourage each other.  We must forget that which is behind and press on forward for the prize to which God is calling us.  That prize or “reward” – our eternity with him – has many way-points along the way and I know that his intention for us is to experience great joy at such times.  Those way-points are themselves a reward of sorts as we see his work competed through us.  I have no doubt that will be the case in the coming weeks as these difficult days come to completion, and so I encourage myself (and you) to persevere – to remain faithful through the difficult work of the next few weeks to the next way-point of rest – to choose to be joyful even when I might not feel joyful.

This whole journey of introspection, though, has at its conclusion an unusual and unexpected twist related precisely to the type of “reward” I am hopeful for in the coming weeks. In my book, I all but promise that making a conscious choice to "be" joyful even when you don't "feel" joyful is an act of obedience to scripture that will not go unrewarded.  For me, that is precisely what happened.  I am referring to an encounter that I had with a co-worker combined with a devotional that I had written several weeks ago for the Uganda mission team.

The co-worker is a believer and is one of the few people I know who actually purchased and read Indescribable Joy.  In her own words, she said that she dreamed about the principles in the book all night and that the result was – life changing.   At first, I had mixed feelings.  I was thrilled that the book meant so much to her.  That is, after all, one of the “joys” I get from writing.  However, I also thought that it was a little bit strange – dreams… about my book?  That is so odd...and a little creepy perhaps... However, the more I thought about it the more I realized how perfectly timed her encouragement was to me in this moment of need.  Why else did I write the book if not to change lives and encourage others to experience joy in a way intended by the Savior?  I have no idea what she meant when she said that she dreamed about the contents of the book, but the fact that God used the book in her life is more than enough encouragement for me today.  Her words of encouragement came at exactly the moment I needed it most - and it changed everything for me as well.  I started to actually "feel" joyful again.

Then came the devotional (http://www.surrenderdaily.blogspot.com/2013/07/designs-for-hope-uganda-mission.html), which spoke of the "food from heaven" that often comes when we are obedient in service and ministry.  This is precisely the word I needed - to be reminded that tiredness and weariness are not always a sign of stress, but simply of work well done - furthermore to be reminded that God will grant us the strength we need to actually persevere as required.  Having read this devotional which I wrote myself several weeks ago, I could look back over the last few weeks and see how God has indeed strengthened me at exactly the times I needed Him to in order to persevere.  Indeed that is exactly what he was doing at the present moment. 

To receive a gracious gift from the Heavenly Father at my exact moment of need – isn’t that just like Him?  To be provided the gentle nudge of not only physical strength but also spiritual vitality that is needed to help us persevere yet another day on this journey - that is itself a source of indescribable joy.  Oddly enough, that was the last principle I outlined in Indescribable Joy – the principle of Contentment – the fact that joy requires faith that God will provide and meet our needs.  Indeed he will provide precisely what we need, when we need it, in order that we can persevere.   He is faithful in our weakness to make us strong.  I can honestly say that I am once again content and have that joy that just a day or so ago I THOUGHT was inaccessible.

I encourage each of you who may be struggling with joy to persevere.  If you can get and read my book, I know that it will be a great help to you.  But if not, then know that God will strengthen you as you need it.  He will not leave you or forsake you.  BE GLAD AND REJOICE that he is your strength and your rock.  Be obedient to choose to be joyful... and he will be faithful in return.