Good News Of Great Joy

THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, my husband and I boarded a plane to fly home after a family gathering. When we discovered our seats were split up, even though our itinerary indicated otherwise, we knew what that meant: God had someone He wanted one of us to talk to. We weren’t able to sit together on the flight to our destination, either, and Bob had shared his faith with the young Buddhist woman he sat next to. Now it was my turn.

Oh, Lord, I prayed, I am tired, but here she is.

“How are you?” I asked my stylish seatmate. After several minutes of casual conversation, she closed her book and shared her story. As I listened to her struggles and contemplated my response, the verses that had gripped my heart during that Christmas season flashed in my mind:

The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

We talked awhile, and I shared that we can still have joy even when things don’t go our way—joy that comes from knowing Christ. The instant our dialogue flipped to spiritual things, my seatmate lost interest and returned to her book. When she comes to mind now, I pray that someday she will find real joy in a relationship with Jesus.

Do you have great joy? I asked myself the same question when I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror. My countenance revealed no sign of joy, great or small. The much-anticipated plans for my day had been cancelled, so I needed a transfusion of joy before I said good morning to anyone.

Where should we turn when life doesn’t go our way? We know the answer; yet sometimes I pout rather than open my Bible. Today, though I was disappointed, I turned to where I left off yesterday, in the book of Jeremiah. The Old Testament prophet continually dealt with difficult and unfair circumstances. I am both intrigued and convicted that when Jeremiah ached because of his persecutors and was distraught about what was happening to his people, he wrote, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16).

In this passage, Jeremiah compares God’s Word to food. We rarely ignore our need for physical food, but it’s our human nature to disregard the spiritual food found in our God-given manual for life. Yet supernatural words on the pages of the inspired Word of God can draw us straight to the heart of God, our source of joy. It happened to me today as my hunger for encouragement was satisfied while I feasted on truth.

Our enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy our joy, but our defense is the Word of God. This side of heaven, we need to resist our tendency to nibble on lesser things and instead fill our minds and hearts with the substantive spiritual food found in the pages of the Bible. Just as regular meals are an essential part of our routines, making time to read the Bible should also be routine. The enemy doesn’t care if we eat, but he will do everything in his power to keep us from being impacted by the powerful Word of God and finding joy through its truth. May the joy of the Lord be our strength!

REFLECTION

Prepare yourself to impact others with your joy by beginning each day with time in God’s Word. When the Bible was new to me, I started reading in Philippians, a book full of references to joy. While Paul was under arrest for preaching the gospel and was awaiting trial in a Roman prison, he demonstrated what real joy looks like. He shared his joy with the Philippians and encouraged them to share their joy with him (see Philippians 2:17-18).

Even when we know our source of joy, at times we still sense that joy slipping away. The good news is that God, through His Spirit and His Word, will fill us with great joy again and again, and one day, if we know Jesus, we will stand before Him: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude 1:24-25).