Training A Joyful Spirit
"Are you sure you know what you are getting into?" This was the crack of yesterday's yard sale cruiser in response to news that my wife and I were holding this yard sale to raise money for adoption. "I've got four kids," he rued. "You can have one of them."
This isn't an uncommon clumsy attempt at consolation. All parents feel the need to vent frustration about the craft, and they seem particularly willing to do so if they think they can console us in childlessness at the same time. Shrinking from such comfort, my soul settled into the leaden likelihood that those who sought to influence it over the years might have been similarly disappointed.
I carried this possibility into today's worship service, but I didn't leave with it weighing me down. As often happens, an actual child led me out of my funk. This one was balanced on her mother's hip as both mother and child danced in what seemed to be blissful worship.
The Lord used the living picture in front of me to rouse my sense of identity in Him. Does that mother looked burdened, He whispered? You are not a burden or a disappointment to me. Training you to dance in the rhythms of My grace, He continued, echoing Luke 10:21, continues as I rejoice in the Spirit over you. Discipleship and worship, as I continue to prove My Father worthy of your trust, are one and the same. You are not keeping me from more important business.
Lured to examine Luke 10, what I found there was also training in worship. My soul continues to latch on to the 21st verse, as above, but before Jesus modeled true joy for His disciples, He coached them not to draw their joy from a secondary source. This is how verses 17 through 24 read:
“Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. ”
Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it. ””
If the original disciples are not to draw their joy from such accomplishments men may notice and praise as the casting out of demons, how much more are we cautioned away from measuring ourselves by our latest attempt to meet people's expectations, or by the bitter dregs of disappointment left by not doing so? If the highs of genuinely noteworthy spiritual accomplishment are not fit food for a joyful spirit, how much more do we with intermittent and partial victories need to sustain our joy in Christ alone?
He carries us. He has the vision for what we will become. He dispenses revelation of His glory like so much refreshing dew on the dry ground of our souls. Thus renewed for life's journey certain of successful conclusion in Heaven with Him, begin to question is not our worth, but our assumptions that would disparage it on scant evidence.
Jonathan Edwards was there as he contemplated the weighty momentum involved in assuming his first pastorate. Subjected to written examinations by young Edwards, the spirit of pessimism withers. “It is a most evil and pernicious practice, in meditations on afflictions, to sit ruminating on the aggravations of the affliction, and reckoning up the evil, dark circumstances thereof, and dwelling long on the dark side."
He measures, "It doubles and trebles the affliction." He adds on the steeping overflow of such a pessimistic heart, "And so when speaking of them to others, to make them as bad as we can, and use our eloquence to set forth our own troubles, is to be all the while making new trouble, and feeding and pampering the old; whereas the contrary practice would starve our affliction."
With this clarity, he progresses from negating the negative in his self-talk to insisting on the positive goodness of God. He writes, "If we dwell on the light side of things in our thoughts and extenuated all that could possibly be good when speaking of them, we should think little of them ourselves. and the affliction would vanish away."
This isn't an uncommon clumsy attempt at consolation. All parents feel the need to vent frustration about the craft, and they seem particularly willing to do so if they think they can console us in childlessness at the same time. Shrinking from such comfort, my soul settled into the leaden likelihood that those who sought to influence it over the years might have been similarly disappointed.
I carried this possibility into today's worship service, but I didn't leave with it weighing me down. As often happens, an actual child led me out of my funk. This one was balanced on her mother's hip as both mother and child danced in what seemed to be blissful worship.
The Lord used the living picture in front of me to rouse my sense of identity in Him. Does that mother looked burdened, He whispered? You are not a burden or a disappointment to me. Training you to dance in the rhythms of My grace, He continued, echoing Luke 10:21, continues as I rejoice in the Spirit over you. Discipleship and worship, as I continue to prove My Father worthy of your trust, are one and the same. You are not keeping me from more important business.
Lured to examine Luke 10, what I found there was also training in worship. My soul continues to latch on to the 21st verse, as above, but before Jesus modeled true joy for His disciples, He coached them not to draw their joy from a secondary source. This is how verses 17 through 24 read:
“Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. ”
Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it. ””
If the original disciples are not to draw their joy from such accomplishments men may notice and praise as the casting out of demons, how much more are we cautioned away from measuring ourselves by our latest attempt to meet people's expectations, or by the bitter dregs of disappointment left by not doing so? If the highs of genuinely noteworthy spiritual accomplishment are not fit food for a joyful spirit, how much more do we with intermittent and partial victories need to sustain our joy in Christ alone?
He carries us. He has the vision for what we will become. He dispenses revelation of His glory like so much refreshing dew on the dry ground of our souls. Thus renewed for life's journey certain of successful conclusion in Heaven with Him, begin to question is not our worth, but our assumptions that would disparage it on scant evidence.
Jonathan Edwards was there as he contemplated the weighty momentum involved in assuming his first pastorate. Subjected to written examinations by young Edwards, the spirit of pessimism withers. “It is a most evil and pernicious practice, in meditations on afflictions, to sit ruminating on the aggravations of the affliction, and reckoning up the evil, dark circumstances thereof, and dwelling long on the dark side."
He measures, "It doubles and trebles the affliction." He adds on the steeping overflow of such a pessimistic heart, "And so when speaking of them to others, to make them as bad as we can, and use our eloquence to set forth our own troubles, is to be all the while making new trouble, and feeding and pampering the old; whereas the contrary practice would starve our affliction."
With this clarity, he progresses from negating the negative in his self-talk to insisting on the positive goodness of God. He writes, "If we dwell on the light side of things in our thoughts and extenuated all that could possibly be good when speaking of them, we should think little of them ourselves. and the affliction would vanish away."
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