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JOY TO THE WORLD
Joy to the world! Peace on earth!
Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a peaceful world and joy doesn’t seem to be all that abundant these days either. I didn’t hear too much dialogue about peace and joy during the frantic run-up to Christmas either. I had to dig for it. Fight for it. Pushing against the gobbling, insistent, constant pressure to buy something, I had to step aside. I used a collection of advent guides and readings to create some space and give my mind and heart a fighting chance to actually prepare myself to celebrate the Incarnation.
And it worked! The silence, the time, the reading, the contemplation of the miracle all prepared my heart to celebrate on Christmas.
I was able to share some of this advent thinking with grandchildren at my daughter’s home over Christmas. An ancient Celtic tradition of “circling prayer” caught my granddaughter’s fancy and we repeated it several times. I was grateful.
So, what about the joy? Did it settle over you during the gift exchange? Has it come to stay once the celebration was over? Have you been able, in this short span of the new year, to figure out how to keep the joy present in your mind and heart? If the answer is no, what are we to do? Are we doomed to live a joyless life for another year? Will the promise of bi-partisan cooperation on some big issue bring us joy? Maybe a job change or a good sized raise in pay? Better grades for one of our struggling children? A better diagnosis than we thought we could hope for? Good weather?
Photo by Menglong Bao on Unsplash
Or is it something different? The scriptures say Jesus told his disciples he wanted his joy to be in them and for
or full – lacking nothing. In fact the “Joy to the World” is actually a joy associated with the arrival of the Savior. A promise. A future full of promise based on the reality of a God who revealed his willingness to defeat death so we could find life in his kingdom. A life of peace and joy.
An author I read declared joy to be impossible without gratitude. She is a social researcher, and joy is one of her “Ten Guideposts to Wholehearted Living.” Her research has demonstrated that one must practice gratitude as a category in one’s life in order to experience joy. She goes on to say it has to be that way…or no joy. Now she isn’t the scriptures, but it does make sense that the pathway to joy would go through a heart characterized by gratitude. Unless we think God would just “make us joyful” regardless of what we do or think. Unlikely, I would say.
For me, I want to be joyful. I want that guidepost in my life. I want to be wholehearted as I wind this earthly life down to what I hope will be a ‘soft landing’ on the other side, into the fulness of God. What is the alternative? Gloom? Despair? Hopelessness? I say no thank you to those ways of living. I choose joy. I choose life! So – gratitude.
Photo by Matt Cannon on Unsplash
A guy gave me Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts last year. It has helped me to be thankful for a myriad of little gifts in my life. Gifts I often share with others (sunshine, a particular blue flower, tastes, smells, clouds, light reflecting on water, etc) and some that seem to be just for me. This heart posture has led to me thinking more intently about gratitude in my life in general.
So let’s practice being grateful.
I am grateful for my faith. Long ago I was drawn to Jesus by others who expressed their love for me. My faith, while desperately needing to grow and mature, has been one of the main guides to my life all these years. It has shaped my view of God and of the world in which I live.
I am grateful for Diane. Only a providential God would go to such lengths to have our paths cross so a rock-solid woman from central North Dakota would be crossed up with a knucklehead from New York – and they would wed. And now, 46 years later, we are like two old flannel shirts to each other – soft, worn again and again for all kinds of tasks, comfortable and favored. Love.
I am grateful for children and grandchildren. Lives. Real honest to God lives who have to figure all of this out for themselves, and yet give us the gift of influence and input. Less now than before, and that is as it should be, I suspect.
Protection. In my life there have been two milestone experiences where it was incredibly clear my power and ability were meaningless. Diane went down with a life-threatening cancer and later Josh found himself unconscious in a Salt Lake City hospital with a head injury. God moved, or protected, or healed, or something. But whatever it was, it was not me! It was Abba, my father. Grateful.
Photo by Conner Baker on Unsplash
Let’s wrap this up. My hope for all of you this year is joy. And I hope you will work for it. Think about gratitude. Figure out if you can have joy without gratitude. Try it! Do whatever you need to do to see what will work. Because joyful people attract others. Joy is contagious. Joy is beautiful, and fragrant, and real.
Joy to your world!
Jeff
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