the journey of a thousand miles

Several nights ago I drove home from a wedding and I was buoyant form having spent a really intense yet enjoyable weekend with some really amazing friends, and as I drove down the dark interstate I started thinking about joy.  I began to ponder what that means to me. 

You see joy and happiness are not the same. I can absolutely fake happiness. I can make myself be happy. I can fake it when everyone wants to go to a restaurant that I don’t like. I can be happy for my friends when great things happen for them. I can be ecstatic that I got to have a long weekend TWO weekends in a row. Honestly I’m really good and faking being happy when I’m not.
But joy, true JOY comes from this deep rooted desire for good. It comes from completely letting go & surrendering whatever might be in the way & sacrificing yourself to what God has and knowing it’s the best path- no matter the peaks and valleys. See you can’t fake joy. You can’t conjure it up in the midst of deep and difficult situations, it just doesn’t happen.

“Dear Brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
James 1:2-4

It is not lost on me that weeks before I would begin a journey through the most heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and faith questioning  time of my life I started a Beth Moore bible study on James-this verse its foundation. As I look back on the last several years, I can see it- an opportunity for great joy. Even in those dark nights that I allowed confusion to rule me, I can now see the journey to joy that God laid out for me to walk. 

Joy is pure, joy is holy & it is a direct result of total surrender. I think for the first time in my life I am completely and totally full of Joy. I’ve been really happy and settled in my life before, but never truly joyFULL. It’s a bit humorous to me actually; I feel like in this moment that everything has come alive-that every struggle and every hardship were worth something.  I feel as if the blinders finally came completely off & I can see life as it truly is- a beautiful, crazy, silly, tough, yet joyous mess. This life is a fight, a constant battle, because we weren’t created for the temporary and the eternal and the temporary will always clash with each other, but in everything consider it pure joy. Endure. Be perfect & complete in God.

“Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” –Mother Theresa

Holiness Doesn't Live in the Microwave

I have a friend who got a new microwave this week and she sent me a photo on Sunday morning of a seriously complicated piece of equipment & her caption said- "I just want to warm up a muffin!" And I laughed, because I'm the girl who gets out the manual & reads all the instructions & knows exactly which steps to follow to get a desired result! But my friend she's kinda a fly by the seat of her pants person, and she just figures it out by trial & error & you know what-she didn't get to eat a muffin, she ate a breakfast burrito instead, BUT she was totally happy about it!! And here's another thing about me- after all my planning if it goes wrong & I don't get the desired result I have a fit! We (I, ME) are living in a microwave generation. We want what we want, when we want it, as fast as possible! 

This week God has ever so gently (because He pours out more mercy upon my life than I possibly deserve) reminded me that no matter what it is that I want, I ultimately want it on HIS timetable! All too often I don't trust, I look heavenward & shake my fists and demand that God give me a reason why I don't have the things I so desperately want. 

This week I realized that it is in those exact moments that I must posture myself in worship. That I should worship until the praise bursts forth, because it's in those moments that I am closest to the heart of God. And if I can't praise Him in the difficult times, how can I praise him fully in the times that are without trials. It's in that desperation of praise that the spirit of God moves & shakes off the warped views of what I want & what I think I need & my focus shifts to the holy righteousness that brings forth peace, joy, gentleness, and the never failing promises of my CREATOR!! He is never shaken, He doesn't give in to my whims, He moves in His own plan & His own time- and it's perfection. The perfection of a creator who placed every star in the sky, the perfection of a savior who sacrificed everything to redeem me, the perfection of a father who loves me unfalteringly. His perfection is sovereign & it blows me away. 

So in the mean time-I'll just be over here worshipping & praising & being thankful that God calls me gently and mercifully into His Glory!!