Delighting in the Divine
Yes to freedom, yes to play and yes to celebrating the moment!
All in 21 days Robed with Joy
I would love to tell you that after 21 days writing about prayer, my days are full of joy - they are not. These last posts have been hard to write and joy has overshadowed me and then seemingly left just as quickly at times. I am living in the harshness of the kingdom coming but not yet fully come! ...
When you are in the middle of the tears, you have no idea that as they drip on the ground they are watering new seeds.
As you struggle with the sledgehammer of bad news to the mind, a descending fog and a wondering if God is bigger than the overwhelming Tsunami coming over you, you have no idea that He is already carrying you on His shoulder out of the storm, but it is a long way before the damage is out of sight...
It is 5pm and the last bowl has been washed up, the house looks vaguely in order and everybody has left. Today we had a lovely Thanksgiving meal together as a community.
There were over 30 adults present from different nations. Some old friends returning for another Thanksgiving, some new friends from this year, new babies, new people, faithful friends who have been on the journey together for years...
Recognise!
Call to mind!
Meditate on!
Mull over!
Remember!
Do not forget the goodness that God has done for you! ...
I shared recently about pushing against resistance in order to see breakthrough. I have found this to be essential when wanting to see breakthrough in relationships with others which can lead to much joy!
Life has given me plenty of opportunities to have misunderstandings, painful relationships and disagreements with others and I'm sure you have had those too. In many of the relationships at school or university, I was able to pull away when things got hard, but marriage and living in community with others has meant that I have had to work at unity. It was really hard at first, but choosing to commit to the person and not pull away has led to joy! The feeling of joy and unity that comes when a broken relationship has been restored and brought to another level is worth it! ...
This post has been one of the ones I have left until last. It seemed like a simple enough post to write - the message seems like simple arithmetic: ask + receive = joy.
So why has it been left until last?
Truthfully, there hasn’t been a lot of things that I have been consciously, specifically, asking God for this month....
I remember waking up the first time I lost a baby a few days after the delivery. It was the middle of the night and I felt an extreme sense of joy welling up inside me - I could almost hear angels singing around me. It seemed so foreign and wrong to be feeling so joyful only a few days after losing a child. My first reaction was, ‘God, is this You?! How can it be You?!’ His reply came clear and strong: ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ ...
I am sitting here pondering on what to write about how encouragement brings joy and there are so many different ways that God has used others to encourage me in the past few months and I want to feast on them for a moment…
Happiness and joy are daily choices. Both science and the Bible confirm the same thing. Science has shown that it is not the circumstances in someone’s life that determine how happy they will be, but that in fact, it can often be the opposite because we find out how unsatisfying wealth and success can actually be in themselves. What makes a difference is perspective...
One fact about me: I hate surprises.
More than hating surprises, I hate surprise announcements in group settings! I feel so awkward and never know how to react. Honestly, my first reaction to any announcement is never overwhelming joy and excitement. I never feel like jumping up and down. Generally I feel like I have just been hit by a truck and my face probably looks a mixture of sea-sickness and a bunny in headlights. Living in a Facebook-email culture, being British and culturally emotionally reserved, I feel like I am not trained in face-to-face group announcements with people close to me, where everyone is looking at everyone else to see how they are reacting. They make me want to run far, far, far, far, away, not jump up and hug the person who has just made the announcement...
I was totally exhausted but I still had another meeting. I had been rushing around since 6am and now it was 9.15pm. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed, my body was giving way, but I knew I needed to go and see my friend. This kind of exhaustion I knew was not just physical but also emotional and spiritual. I arrived at her house (which is just across the street from my house,) and flopped down on her sofa. She could see my exhaustion and came and surrounded me in a hug and began to intercede for me. I had been through an intense spiritual battle that week and she knew it. She began to pray, speak out life and promises over me and my spirit. She and I cried together and brought the intense issues of the day to God...
About a week after the miscarriage life was pretty intense for some other circumstances and with the stress of grieving the miscarriage, being thrown straight back into leading stuff out here with Mark and readjusting to living life back in Peru after two months of travels led me to really question whether or not I wanted to carry on leading out Oikos with Mark. Not that I had anything else I wanted to do, or any idea of where we would go, but I felt the enemy strongly trying to get me to give up and ‘go home’ wherever that would be! If God had offered me an accelerated ticket to heaven, I may well have taken Him up on the offer! ...
As I have been reflecting on how God’s Word brings me joy this week, I reflected on how much the Word unlocks situations for me. It speaks directly into my situations and gives me solutions, life and wisdom. The enemy can use God’s word to bring discouragement (remember Jesus in the desert?) so it isn’t just the written Word in itself that speaks to me, but rather the Living Word, Jesus and His Spirit who bring the Word alive for me and who brings me joy...
In the last few weeks I would say I have had the foundations re-done in my faith house. It is not that I ever desired or even thought about turning my back on God, but I found myself in a some very uncomfortable soul renovations. After I had the miscarriage I felt responsible for the death of the baby. Whether that is true or not is really irrelevant and besides the point - I wasn’t purposefully trying to kill my child, but what it meant is that I struggled with an un-shruggable feeling of guilt for a while...
One of the things I am realizing by studying joy is that perhaps the practical ways of putting on joy are ‘obvious’ but how much I fail to actually do them! These studies are not so much about trying to reveal to myself ways to be joyful, but rather opportunities to practice what I should already know!
I have to say, however, that I was very surprised at the number of different things the Bible says that bring us joy and how much I take them for granted and refuse to recognise and embrace and intentionally place these things in my life!
Joy is, in many circumstances, a choice...
It’s around 5pm when I am really struggling with joy this week. I feel tired and as the children get ready for bed and peace reigns somewhere around 8pm, I feel like I should do something productive with the last couple of hours before 10pm, but all I feel like doing is nothing. My mornings feel full of joy, with the conscious effort of putting on joy, but by mid-afternoon I feel dissatisfied with my effectiveness and anxiety sets in about how to be productive with any ‘spare time’ I have.
As I sit this morning and write out all the things that are making me anxious, I realize that in all the different situations what I need to know is whether to push through or let go...
This morning as I got out of bed, the balcony door had been left open and in slid a crisp, inviting, fresh morning air. I took it to be an invitation from the Lord to go outside for my quiet time and meet Him in Creation.
Daniel and Kaleb were already up so I asked them if they wanted to come with me and together we walked the four blocks down to the sea front. I know it sounds idyllic, but it really is not...
Who gets you dressed in the morning? Has your spouse or a friend ever got you dressed? Maybe after an operation, or if you are unable to dress yourself for whatever reason, but I'm guessing there aren't many couples who get each other dressed in the morning. I don’t imagine there are many roommates who do up each others buttons either other than on a wedding dress or ball gown?
Has anyone ever given you an item of clothing? Other than when you were too small to dress yourself, when you were given that item of clothing, did the person who gave you that item of clothing also dress you in it? ...
Is it just me who has been frustrated when the fruits of the Holy Spirit don’t automatically appear in my life at all times?
Although I do believe that the fruits are gifts of grace and cannot be earned, sometimes I fail to recognize they are also part of the process of becoming more like Jesus and often require faith to walk in on a daily basis...
Have you ever seen a canal lock being opened? In order for the water levels on the canal river to align, a large metal key is wound into the lock gate which slowly opens sections of the lock gate to allow water to flow through. The more the key is turned, the more water is allowed through until finally the water is at such a level that the gates of the lock can be opened and the flow of water is aligned...
