I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my
heart
Where?!Down in my heart!
Where?!
Down in my heart!
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy
Down in my heart,
Where?!
Down in my heart to staaaaay.
And I'm so happy! So very happy. I've got the love of Jesus in my heart (down in my heart)
And I'm so happy! So very happy. I've got the love of Jesus in my heart.
Didn’t that feel good?
I’ve got the love of Jesus down in my heart, so I’ve got the joy, joy,
joy, joy! Philippians 4:4 at its
finest! Can I get an Amen?! Sure can…for now.
See, this is a fresh devotional with a little more
elaboration than I gave to the family at our recent church by the ocean. I convicted myself. Never fun.
But we sing about the joy, joy, joy, joy, but then we take a wrong turn
somewhere and that joy vanishes.
Poof! Like Barbara Eden
skedaddling to avoid getting caught, our joy vanishes in a flash. When I say “we take a wrong turn” I mean that
literally. On our way to Gulf Shores,
the tunnel in Mobile was backed up something fierce. I made a last minute decision to take the
“hazardous material” route to see if I could save us a little time. The trouble came when the route wasn’t really
marked all that well with what to do with that exit after you took it. The end result was roughly 5 minutes (maybe
it was a whole 10 minutes tops) of circling around downtown Mobile trying to
find this alternate route. My joy was
gone just like that. I was on my way to
a family vacation – the best time to EVER have only joy in my heart without the
distractions or frustrations of work and all that whatnot. Not me.
My truck’s GPS is barking about legal u-turns, and I’m literally
back-talking the truck. It’s not going
to shut up no matter hateful I tell it to.
No exaggeration, I was looking to the map in my dashboard, “would you
shut UP?!” Of course, it’s not going
to. It wasn’t doing anything wrong.
I was.
I was the one growling like a hungry grizzly bear. I was the one mad at…at what? At the roads for not being marked? At my wife for looking on her phone to say
“It looks like we need to go back this way?”
At the truck’s gps for having the audacity to put me along the path I
told it to keep me on? At me for getting
turned around so easily. Maybe if I
hadn’t popped my top, I wouldn’t have gotten turned around so easily. “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my
heart! Where?!” Shut up, you stupid
truck, can’t you see I’m turned around down here?!?! My joy, joy, joy, joy was gone. Just like that. The love of Jesus in my heart, apparently
simply couldn’t compete with the frustrations of a wrong turn.
Meanwhile, there’s Paul.
Good old Paul. Around the same
time frame that he was writing Philippians 4:4, (Rejoice in the Lord always,
and again I say rejoice) he was writing his second letter to the
Corinthians. Now, granted he didn’t
specifically say in the 2 Corinthians context that he was finding joy in this
list (although he does in Colossians 1:24), but within a few years of when he
was making this list to defend his apostleship (2 Corinthians), he was sitting
in a jail, yet again, telling us to rejoice in the Lord always. SO, let’s take a quick look at Paul’s list of
things he’s endured and yet still is able to rejoice in the Lord, shall
we? Then we’ll see how his list stacks
up against my list.
Picking up in verse 23 of 2 Corinthians
11 in far more labors, in far more
imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24 Five times I
received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three
times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked,
a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26 I
have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers,
dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city,
dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren;
27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many
sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and
exposure. 28 Apart from such external things,
there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
Wow.
I don’t think I need to, but since I said I would, let’s compare those
lists, shall we? So I’ll go first. My list of frustrations includes stuff like
this: Can’t find my boots in the morning
before work, crazy drivers on the road, people that waste my time at work,
getting myself lost in an unfamiliar town while I’m on vacation, and maybe some
mosquitoes thrown on the list for good measure to make it longer. Does your list look a little like mine? I mean, to be honest, I do tend to give the
big things to God and trust Him to handle them.
Major illnesses and friends and family with major issues, I tend to lift
them up in prayer and trust God. But then
the train gets derailed with bad drivers and mosquitoes. Really?
Yeah, really. Paul’s listed the
infamous 39 lashes that he’s gotten five separate times, followed by being
beaten with rods three times and being stoned.
Oh, and shipwrecked. Not just
turned around in Mobile, Alabama…but shipwrecked floating a full day and night out
there lost. Starving, freezing, and not
only that…he feels daily pressure over his concern for the churches. My last concern for a church was either over
a) what mine was or wasn’t doing compared to what I thought it should or
shouldn’t be doing or b) the general public perception of “the church” based on
behavior of growing number of people who call themselves Christians but no more
act like it than Sodom or Gomorrah while condemning the country of being like
Sodom and Gomorrah.
I have to say that Paul’s list looks a
little more impressive of things he has to endure…still he has the joy, joy,
joy, joy down his heart. He’s been
beaten, stoned, and lashed, but he has the love of Jesus down in his
heart. So Paul rejoices in the Lord
always. He channels Job, “Though he slay
me, I will still trust in the Lord.”
Listen for the Whisper that takes a hard
right-hand turn like a last-minute detour in Mobile and sounds like the parable
of the sower in Matthew 13. I like to
think of myself of the seed that fell on the good soil. That gospel message has fallen in the good
soil of my heart, taken root and is producing fruit. Then I take a wrong turn in Mobile,
Alabama. Joy? What Joy?
Nobody here in this truck but anger and frustration and short
tempers. Which rubs off on those
immediately around me. Yup, really
shining my little light, ain’t I? Then I
get back on the road and headed the right way and think to myself, “maybe I’m a
little closer to that rocky soil without much root…one simple wrong turn and
apparently the love of Jesus crumpled up and tossed in the floorboard.” That love of Jesus is supposed to be a source
of joy that no dementor can take away (yeah, I just dropped a Harry Potter
reference). I think my garden needs a
little more work. There’s some good soil
there, but still a few big rocks that need to be dug up and thrown out. Maybe people might want a little more of what
I claim to have if I lived it a little better.
How can I profess to the world about the joy I have in the Grace of my
God and the love of my Savior Jesus Christ if a little thing like a wrong turn
can steal that joy? Is my source of joy
better than there’s (whatever theirs happens to be) if that’s all it
takes?
We’re supposed to be little moons
reflecting the light of the Son, and we read about Jesus flipping out over
something insignificant and trivial like a wrong turn. Jesus didn’t flip out when Judas betrayed
Him. Jesus didn’t flip out when the
crowd shouted, “Crucify Him!” Jesus
didn’t flip out when they raised Him up on that cross. He turned His eyes to Heaven. Maybe if we were better at reflecting the
“Sonlight”, that would be our reaction as well.
Instead of flipping out over a pair of buried boots, or slow driver in
front of us, or an impatient driver behind us, we might turn our eyes to Heaven
and realize that we’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in our hearts. That joy that comes from the love of
Jesus…that’s a joy that you have to actively choose to give up. I’ve used the phrase “steal my joy” a few
times, but losing that joy is a choice.
Nobody – and I’ll reiterate that for good measure – NOBODY can take the
joy that comes from the love of Jesus Christ from you. Not the devil. Not bad drivers. Not a truck’s GPS. Not one single person regardless of what
they’ve done to you. Not a single person
on this planet can TAKE that joy from you.
You have to choose to give up that joy.
Andrea’s been trying to tell me for a while now. When I get frustrated with people and she
tells me, “Don’t let them take your joy.”
But they can’t take my joy. I
have to choose to give it up. I have to
make a decision, even on a subconscious level, to give up that joy and accept
anger and frustration. I realized that
on a stretch of road in Alabama this past week.
I’d rather choose joy. And not
just any joy…not joy from a slow day at work, or joy from a child’s report card
with all As, or joy from a week-long vacation followed by a fun concert and
meeting up with old friends. Those joys
are all temporary. I’m choosing the joy
that comes from the love of Jesus down in my heart. So now that I’ve said all of that, let’s see
if we get those rocks out of our garden and get some of that love planted in
good soil, and give that song another shot.
As the old band director say, “One more time…With Feeling!” And this time, let’s really mean it.
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my
heart
Where?!Down in my heart!
Where?!
Down in my heart!
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy
Down in my heart,
Where?!
Down in my heart to staaaaay.
And I'm so happy! So very happy. I've got the love of Jesus in my heart (down in my heart)
And I'm so happy! So very happy. I've got the love of Jesus in my heart.
Why would we ever choose to give that up?
~Dwayne
ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.nethttp://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com
