[continued from part III]Rejoice, is an interesting word. It contains so much. To rejoice doesn’t just mean when things are joyful, or when everything is going well, no rejoice is something we choose, something we choose to feel and therefore declare, that you are rejoicing in something, in someone.
Rejoice, has an object. In order to rejoice, there must be one in which to focus on.
"In all these things, we greatly rejoice..."
In who? In what?
Sometimes there are just times in life where rejoicing seems like a joke. Are you kidding me, this is horrible.
Yet I will trust in him, yet I will praise Him, we hear the psalmist and Job constantly share with us.
This passage came alive yesterday, through this conversation and time I spent processing and figuring out more what this looks like for me.
Rejoice in the Lord, Paul starts, then adds, always. When? Always. I will say it again, rejoice.
The only way we can always rejoice in the Lord is when we choose to look more to Him than our condition or circumstances. When we continue to focus on His love, His power and His might.
Knowing that we are not in control and cannot do anything to change our circumstances.
We surrender.
For we were even promised these words by our Savior himself, that in this world we WILL have trouble. But that He was pointing us to another alternative to navigate through those rough terrains.
The only possible way to always, in every season, in any circumstance, be able to rejoice at all times, is rejoicing in our Lord and Savior, nothing else.
Yet we cannot be mistaken, this is a hard, hard call. Easy in theory, yet painfully humbling in practice.
It calls for a death of many things. Our illusion of control, our pride, our ability to predict life and even God, our dependence on false gods, many things must be crucified, in order to find new life.
Rejoice. Just the word alone can be a jarring juxtaposition in the midst of whatever we’re facing.
But what I find most interesting is the context for Paul's extortions.
It is easy to rejoice in the things that are joyful. In the moments where we feel fully alive and God could not seem nearer. In the victories. In the good times. When life couldn’t get any better…
But what I find most intriguing, when Paul penned these words, he was in the midst of suffering. He wasn’t enjoying a life filled with roses and rainbows, he was in jail.
Yet his soul, his heart, could say, rejoice.
Then he continues, why should we rejoice again? Because the Lord is near.
This is such a powerful line. He is near. Sometimes, in the most difficult of circumstances, in the moments when we feel God is so far away, we find He is blessedly near.
Nearer than our very breath. The blessing in walking through hardship is it can forge a dependence on Him that is ultimately life-changing and healing.
So Paul urges us to let our gentleness be evident to all, to acknowledge that the Lord is with us, in us and around us. In those we encounter, in the trials we are facing, as well as the joys and the victories.
Then he acknowledges the weight of our situations, knowing that our lives are not simple but complex and full of joy and pain and says, do not be anxious about anything, but instead, in EVERY situation, not some, not a few, but every situation… pray and plead to God, and also give thanks to Him for who He is and all He has done, he says, present your requests to God.
He is listening.
Next, he says what will be the result and what will happen to our hearts through this, a critical thing here that also jumped out at me yesterday was Paul here reveals the blessing of prayer.
Prayer is our souls communing and communicating to God, but also God communicating and touching and healing our souls. Prayer is where He reveals Himself to us and He finds this far more important that just giving us all that we ask.
In prayer, as Paul shares here, we gain.
We come to KNOW Him more, our hearts are put at rest there as he says what our gift will be in return, we will receive the peace of God.
The holy spirit allows this strange peace, this peace we can feel even when everything is hitting the fan, a peace that as he attests to, transcends all understanding, is what we desperately need more than anything.
As he continues to say this peace, that comes only from God, will not so much deliver you from the fires of your situation or suffering, but this peace will GUARD you.
It will guard your heart and your mind, the two places where this battle is raging most intensely, it will protect those sacred places in the power of none but Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Let’s stop a minute again here.
It was the word guard that also stopped me dead in my tracks.
I realized it was what I desperately needed. My soul was in grave danger. My heart and my mind were in despair. While despair can lead us to deeper places that are necessary for our growth and healing, if we stay there, we get stuck.
There is no hope in despair. It is hard to see God. Hard to see or fathom a way or even a time where this will not be going on.
What I needed in those moments was for the peace of God to come and guard my heart and my mind, and shift my focus. Back onto Him and how He is going to lead and guide me as we walk through this together, as we continue to face the storms.
I realized the last two weeks I’ve been leaving my heart unguarded.
I have been misplacing my hope.
Sadly, I admitted that somewhere in the course of the last couple of weeks, my hope was not really in God as I might have liked to believe, but in the promise of feeling better. There's nothing wrong in hoping to feel better, but my hope first needed to be in the God who is above my circumstances, not just my situation changing.
As I also told my mentor yesterday, you know, the first eight weeks of this it wasn’t difficult to put my hope in God and not my circumstances changing. Or even the first two months. Three.
But it was like I was given a glimmer of hope, as things were improving with the new treatment plan and the last appointment ended with a confident, yup we think it will be about 6-8 more weeks till full recovery, but things are looking good.
Then yet again, that hope was stripped away. And I was left more devastated than before. Shocked and surprised.
So I find myself facing the same battle I did in the first few weeks of this, when I was finally able to embrace the situation and know that God’s glory would be revealed in this and His will be done.
That the purpose of my life is to glorify Him, to know Him, to fall more deeply in love and to become more like Him. And if that is what my life is about, then who I am to say how that purpose will be accomplished?
I knew i was not being punished, I knew God loved me and delights in me, and hurts to see me in pain, yet I also came to place where I came face to face with the reality that healthy or sick, my purpose is the same: the glorify Him and to know Him more, to be matured more in the likeness of His son and that for this particular season, He sees fit for that to happen with me being sick.
It changed everything.
And I am grateful yet again for this realignment. Grateful yesterday for having people in my life who are in love with the Lord, following Him and can help me see more of what God is leading and inviting me into through this. Thankful that I can’t and don’t have to do life alone.
That I can too, rejoice.
That I could too come to know more of what Paul meant when he says he had learned the secret of being content in any circumstance, in plenty and in want.
Paul had experience the goodness of the Lord, in every season, in every joy, triumph, trial and failure, his life was transformed by the immutable power of God. And an unfailing love in which daily, he could put his hope.
This passage came alive to me afresh yesterday and I pray the word continues to penetrate my heart and lead me deeper into His heart.
Father, You alone are lovely, You alone are good. I thank you that you have rescued us from the fickleness of our happiness or peace being tied to our circumstances. That you have rescued us from that and offer us another way, another glimpse of who you truly are.
That we can find peace and rest in your presence, in sunshine and in rain. In the moments we never want to end and the moments we hope to quickly forget, You are the same.
Your ways are higher, Your love is greater, You are better than any other. You are our healer, you are our God, our loving risen Savior.
“In this too, we greatly rejoice…”
Father, teach me each day what it means to find You, to grieve when the time to grieve, to celebrate when the time to celebrate, to laugh when the time to laugh, to cry when the time to cry. Teach me. Mold me and shape me.
Let me wrestle with this question and find You in it, let me come to You and let me ask What does it mean for me to rejoice, not in what happened a month ago, not in that highlight a few years ago, not in the last time I laughed so hard my side hurt, not in that time I spent with all of my best friends and loved ones, not in the moments where I felt healthy again, not in those times again, yet today.
Let me find you waiting as I seek You and ask, what does it look like for me to rejoice… today?
For you alone are God and you alone are good.
"Rejoice in the Lord, always. I will say it again: rejoice ... for He is near..."
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