{when your joy is off the market}

This morning I picked up my Bible and opened it to Psalm 43.

In five short verses, I found freedom.

I’ve been working through the psalms for about six weeks, and as I study and notate each psalm, memories often push into my thought process with a powerful presence.

I’m one for writing in my Bible.  I write dates and notes in the margins, so when I go back to a passage I can see how the Lord used it to uphold me through whatever I was living through the last time I touched that particular page.  These notes and dates are my stones of remembrance. I need reminders that God is faithful because I’m forgetful and have a spiritual myopia I long to be healed of when I step into heaven.

As has happened frequently lately, I’ve seen a lot of dates from last fall peppered throughout the pages of my Bible, most heavily in the psalms.  Look, if you’re going through a hard time, you’ll find solace in the gut-wrenching, questioning honesty of the psalmists. I can always find a kindred spirit in the psalms, no matter what’s at the heart of my current reality.  Can you see the love of God in putting this kind of camaraderie in His words to us?

When I opened to Psalm 43 this morning, I saw the dates from September, and a heavy feeling of anxiety shrouded in sadness settled over me.  I remember the sick feeling in my stomach when I last read this page in my Bible.  I was not only dealing with chronic pain, but much more importantly, I was afraid I would lose my son.

At that time I was crying out with the author of this psalm for vindication.  I wanted truth to be known, for light to shine brightly on the unknown parts of our story, for the Lord to BE PRESENT and to BE POWERFUL.  I understood why the psalmist turned to Yahweh for help instead of taking vindication into his own hands; I think he saw his helplessness for what it was when propped up against the power of God, who rightly was his refuge.  In comparison, there is no comparison.

In verse 4, he calls God his “greatest joy.”

Those words seemed like they were written in a bigger font than the rest of the passage when I read them this morning. Of all the good stuff in that psalm, these words loom large on the page and in my heart this morning.

Because here’s the thing: when Jesus is your greatest joy, then your joy is off the market.  It is unstealable.  It can’t be bought, sold, traded, or stolen.

If it’s the fear that your future is on the brink of falling irreparably apart and that your heart will never mend from the brokenness of today, or if it’s the criticism and failures left at your door by others–it doesn’t really matter where the thief hails from.  If Jesus is your greatest treasure, then no thief can steal your treasure because no one can take Jesus from you. If He is your greatest joy, then your joy absolutely cannot be taken from you.  It’s not possible.

But you’re living through something crushingly hard right now and you can find no joy in it.  That’s okay.  Joy doesn’t exactly cancel out sadness, in my experience. They can co-exist sometimes.  But joy does free you from bitterness….when Jesus is the source of your joy.

I don’t know about you, but that’s incredibly freeing to me.  If my joy is Jesus, then it cannot be taken from me, no matter what happens to me or my family.  If it’s a big threat or a small one, my joy is safe if it’s Jesus.  But if my joy is safety or possessions, relationships or the desire for a guarantee, then my joy isn’t safe and it can slip through my fingers while I fruitlessly try to grasp it.

Romans 8 immediately came to mind this morning:

“What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?                                                                                                                                                                                               He did not even spare His own Son
but offered Him up for us all;
how will He not also with Him grant us everything?
Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect?
God is the One who justifies.
Who is the one who condemns?
Christ Jesus is the One who died,
but even more, has been raised;
He also is at the right hand of God
and intercedes for us.
Who can separate us from the love of Christ?
Can affliction or anguish or persecution
or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written:
‘Because of You
we are being put to death all day long;
we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered^.’
No, in all these things we are more than victorious
through Him who loved us.
For I am persuaded that not even death or life,
angels or rulers,
things present or things to come, hostile powers,
height or depth, or any other created thing
will have the power to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!”     

That’s freedom, friends.  If you are following Jesus, make sure that HE is your joy.  How else can we endure the sufferings we are certain to face on this broken planet?  Everything else can be taken from you in a moment.  Everything.  

But not Jesus. Joy that is sourced in Him is off the market.

Anchor your confidence, contentment, happiness, your eternity in Him. 

He will never fail you.

 

Save

Save