"Low on JOY this New Year?"

Happy New Year 2012!!!

Sorry for my lack of communication lately...I am very thankful to have the opportunity to write to you all tonight. Actually, I was inspired to write this blog while spending some time alone with the Lord this afternoon. It stems from roots I have been struggling with the past couple of weeks here. Recently, I've been experiencing a season of feeling pretty down. Today was the straw that broke the camel's back. However, it never ceases to blow my mind when, during my lowest times, the Lord seems to speak to me the most. So, here is what I have been learning during the times when I was not basking in the spirit of "Christmas Cheer"...

JOY...something we all want at one point in our lives or another, but it can seem like an unattainable possession. Many of us have a hard time even defining what would bring us JOY. Sure, there are many things that can serve to bring us happiness...but I'm not talking about happiness; I'm talking about JOY-that which allows us to rise above our circumstances and is not affected by our current mood, feelings and/or emotions, which sometimes don't succeed in taking us along for that coveted joy ride.

The Lord has recently been reminding me to "Abide in Him". As I was reading through John chapter 15 today, verse 11 really stuck out to me. It reads, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." (emphasis added) The questions begged to be answered in my mind: what were "these things" and how could they make my joy full?? To answer these questions, I read a few verses before verse 11. Jesus, in fact, lays it all out pretty simply for us. He says in verse 9-10, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." Then He says in 11, that He has told us these things that His joy may be in us (the joy He has in obeying the Father) and that our joy may be full (if we obey the Father and therefore abide in the Father's love). Then, abiding in the Father's love is key to having our joy made full! Apart from obeying God, our joy can never be full. I can attest to this. The most miserable times in my life seem to be when I am either dodging what I know the Lord wants me to do or not seeking Him to find out what He desires for me, both of which are forms of rebellion towards God. In short, I do not experience joy in my life when I am in rebellion against the Lord.

In my case, my lack of joy recently was resulting from lack of communion with God on a one on one basis. My personal prayer time was very scant and, at times, non-existent. I had very little desire to read the Bible and when I did go to its pages, I felt defeated before I began reading. By not going to the Lord as a first means of healing me in all ways imaginable, I was inadvertantly displaying my lack of faith in the Lord to not only understand my circumstances, but to also work to change me in the process, in order that I may become more like Jesus in all my ways. In Hebrews, chapter 11 verse 6, it says that..."without faith, it is impossible to please [God], for he who comes to God must first believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." (italics added) By not diligently seeking the Lord concerning the way I was feeling, I was not trusting in Him; therefore, it stands to reason that I was not abiding in His love. I was lacking faith in my heart, whereby it is "impossible to please God". Because of these things, I was not affording Him the opportunity to shower His joy upon me, as a reward for seeking Him. It was not that He had turned a deaf ear to me...it was I who had ceased from going to Him. "You have not because you ask not...." (James 4:2)

When we seek the Lord, we humble ourselves (by admitting through our action of prayer that we can not do it without Him) and we honor Him, for why would we ask Him if we did not believe that He could fulfill what we ask? James chapter 4, verses 6 and 10 tell us that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. When we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, He will lift us up. But I had not been humbling myself in prayer to the God of my salvation; the One Who died for me and does not withhold anything good from those who walk uprightly. The One who promises to never leave me nor forsake me; the One Who loves me with an unconditional love that is so hard for my mind to conceive.

By not seeking Him, my heart had inadvertantly lifted itself up in a subtle form of pride against Him, thinking that He (although He is the One Who created me!) could somehow NOT know my way as well as I could..."The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) It is no wonder that I was not enjoying the Joy He gives while living with a heart being poisoned by pride and unbelief! Simply put, I was not abiding in His love. I was having a hard time exhibiting "the fruits of the Spirit" in my life (Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) because I was not abiding in Jesus and allowing Him to fill my heart. In John chapter 15 verse 5, Jesus says, ..."Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." So, while abiding in Jesus, we will bear "much fruit" and therefore glorify God and prove to be His disciples! (John 15:8) My lack of trust in the Lord and unwillingness to humble myself before the Lord in prayer was keeping me from bearing the fruit of the Spirit, glorifying God and experiencing fullness of Joy! 

Praise be to God Who has mercy on us and draws us to Himself because of His kindness which leads us to repentance! (Romans 2:4)      =D