Okay, so if any of you read my blog (to those of you who do, thank you so much! it means the world to me that you'd take time out of your days to see what I have to say) you'll know that I've made a post similar to this one a few months ago. It was pretty vague (I don't even know if it's still up on the blog) and honestly, I think I just wanted to show off my doodling skills so I made a blog post with a doodle I had made. But I digress... Here I am on February 15, 2015 sitting in the Starbucks by Marietta Square (also my place of employment... why am i here on my day off???) and I can't seem to get myself to rejoice. I don't know how many of you know the story of how I got to Georgia, so I'll give you the quick version. A few months ago (around September) I was planning to move to College Station, Texas (random, I know) to go to school. I had a few friends there and I thought they were the best thing that had ever happened to me (tbh, probably one of the worst.) Then the day before my twenty-first birthday, our friendship crashed and burned (like there is absolutely no hope for redeeming these friendships and honestly, I'm okay with that.) I remember going to my parent's room at 3 in the morning and just sitting on the bed with my mom and weeping. Yet again, my entire plan for my future had fallen through. I had already been accepted to school in Texas for the spring semester, I was looking for apartments, and a week earlier everything had seemed fine. Then BAM. It was all gone. I was completely devastated (and bitter.) A few days later, I get a text from my best friend that said "Hey, we're planting a church in Marietta, Georgia. You should come." (Or something along those lines) As soon as I got that text, I knew that I wanted to be in Marietta. Deep in my spirit, I heard the Lord whisper "Go" but I was so scared that it was just my subconscious trying to get me to run from the hurt I was experiencing, so I told my friend that I would pray about it and get back to him later. Not too long after I told him that, I decided that I was just going to stay home in Louisiana and try to deal with and fix some of the stuff that was going on with myself but I could never really shake off Marietta. It was always in the back of my mind. Then one day it clicked. God was calling me to move ten hours away from my family to start over in a new city where I could be completely myself without being under the shadow of my father (who is so cool. y'all. my dad is the best, but like how was i going to live up to being as cool and anointed as my dad if i stayed in sulphur?), where I could love on the nations (marietta is so diverse, y'all, like we are called to bring the Gospel to the nations and the nations have been brought to marietta. how convenient!!!), and I could be a part of a Gospel-centered community of believers starting from the ground up. So then I texted Vinny and was like "Yo, I'm coming to Marietta." And here I am. In Marietta, Georgia. With a great job, great friends, a loving church family, and I can't find joy anywhere in myself to rejoice. Crazy right? I'm living the life I've always dreamed of living and yet I've been stuck in this kind of rut. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?????
Rejoice: to feel or show great joy or delight.
Thank you Google shortcuts for that quick and efficient definition of "rejoice." (but for real how cool are the google shortcuts. like i can do math on google now) I think if you've been in church long enough, you know that the Scriptures are filled to the brim with the word "rejoice." So I decided to take a look at the Word and to see what rejoicing looks like in a Biblical context. Here are a few examples from both the Old and the New Testament.
- Psalm 9:2 - "I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, Most High."
- Psalm 13:5 - "But I have trusted in your steadfast love; and my heart shall rejoice in your salvation."
- Psalm 33:21 - "For our hearts will rejoice in Him, because we trust His holy name."
- Isaiah 25:9 - "It will be said on that day, 'Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is the Lord we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.'"
- Joel 2:23 - "Be glad, O children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given the early rain for your vindication; He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain as before."
- Matthew 5:12 - "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Jesus talking!!!!)
- John 16:22 - "So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." (still Jesus talking)
"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
As said earlier, I've been in this rut where I feel like I can't rejoice anymore. I've been caught up in the fact that I'm 628 miles away from my family and I don't know when I'll see them again or that I feel completely alone and unwanted sometimes or even worse, the personal things going on in my life that I don't necessarily need to post about on the internet. I feel like my "sufferings" are crippling me. How can I rejoice when I can't even breathe? How can I have joy in the midst of all this hurting and chaos?
So I was thinking. I don't really think that joy always correlates with happiness and our circumstances. Or maybe joy is when we shift our focus from our circumstances to our Savior. In verse 2 it says "we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." When the light of the glory of our Savior is seen, the shadows of our circumstances become so much smaller. I think joy is rooted in who the Lord is. Joy is a by product of the Holy Spirit in one's life. Joy is constant but I think often times we lose focus on Jesus and put joy on the back burner. When we are enthralled with the glory of the Lord, we realize that everything else is so inconsequential. I miss my family? Jesus is greater. I feel alone? Jesus is greater. My life feels like it's falling apart? Jesus is greater. The answer to our desire for joy will always be Jesus. There is no way that we can truly rejoice without our focus being fully on the Lord.
Joy is acknowledging and acting upon the knowledge that Jesus is greater. Jesus is constant. Joy is rooted in Jesus and because of that, I can rejoice.
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