Choosing Joy

Click here: 2 Corinthians 4:4-10

REFLECTION

by Mary Alice McGinnis

Maybe today’s title puts you off and makes you bristle. It might feel like forcing a smile and pretending all is well. Maybe it feels out of touch with reality, bidding us to look at life through rose colored glasses. You may be thinking, “Finding joy in my current circumstances is impossible.” Perhaps it brings feelings of shame and guilt for not feeling happier. 

Pause on each of the distressing circumstances the writer mentions in today’s reading. What stood out to you? What personal hardships could you add to this list?

• Troubles, hardships and distresses.

• Beatings, imprisonments and riots.

• Sleepless nights and hunger.

• Dishonor, bad report.

• Regarded as impostors.

• Unknown.

• Dying and beaten.

• Poor.

Joy is not ignoring hardships. It is not sticking our head in the sand (or the snow) and pretending everything is fine.

In fact, throughout scripture, a pattern called lament is modeled. (Check out this google AI description for more insight into lament.)

1. Addressing God.

2. Pouring out your complaint.

3. Make a direct request to God. Ask for help.

4. Trust/Praise – before an answer is given, express our heartfelt trust in God’s faithfulness and love, and tune our hearts to praise even amid difficultly.

Did you see this pattern in today’s reading? The writer not only lists all his troubles.

He says:

. . . sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Have you ever thought about that? If God never did another thing for you in this life, the God of the Universe cared enough about you that He sent Jesus to die for you. We are God’s beloved, His chosen servants, commended before Him in the perfection He won for us.

In sincere love, He blesses us with the Holy Spirit who speaks TRUTH to us. “in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left.” 

We cannot depend on ourselves to conjure up joy! If we lament and turn our hearts to Jesus, His powerful truth will remind us that in Him, we have everything we need. This is the mysterious way of rejoicing even when we are sorrowful - choosing joy.

PRAYER

Lord, I pour out my lament to You right now. I lay before You all the places in my life that are causing me distress and heartache. I NEED Your help. You are the only One who can right the wrongs and heal the broken.

Remind me again of Your faithfulness and love. The cold snow of trouble and hardships will not get the last word. I will put my trust in You! I proclaim Your praise even when I cannot yet see the outcome, because You are my loving and faithful Savior.