In my overwhelmed pitiful state I opened my Bible, because I knew that this was the only thing powerful enough to break me out of the state I was in. I turned to Psalm 23 because you can always count on good ole David to have been in a similar state at some point in his life.
"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."
Shepherds know their sheep. They know what each of their sheep needs. Every single one. A shepherd provides for his sheep to the point where we shall not want! Translation: we lack nothing. We have everything that we need because our shepherd is watching over us. Not only is God our provider, but he restores our soul. When I reached this point in the passage, the weight on my heart began to lift, not all at once, but slowly, gently. He restores my soul.
Restore: to bring back into existence; to reestablish to a former state of health, soundness, or vigor.
The word renew also comes to mind. Restore. Replenish. Revive. This is what the good shepherd does for us. But notice that he only does this for one reason... to bring glory to his name.
John Piper said, "God's quest to be glorified and our quest to be satisfied reach their goal in his one experience: our delight in God, which overflows with praise."
As humans in a broken world, we are constantly seeking to be satisfied in life. To be happy, to feel like we have a purpose. To feel joy. We chase after many things in this world to try to achieve this state of eternal happiness, and some of us will go to any length to get it. But it doesn't matter what you do or who you are, there is still only way to have joy. And that's through Jesus Christ. It's through following the Shepherd and allowing his Spirit to dwell inside of you. It's through forsaking all the worldly things and ideas that lead us away from God and away from giving Him the glory.
Matthew 13:44 says, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." That's some serious devotion. For some serious joy.
I think that the Lord wants us to be joyful. Because I think He wants us to bring Him glory. Remember, the two go hand in hand. John Piper also said, "If God were not infinitely devoted to the preservation, display, and enjoyment of His own glory, we could have no hope of finding happiness in Him."
Psalm 16:11 says, "You make known to me the paths of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
And there are many more verses in the Bible that talk about joy.
So what does joy look like? What does it mean? How does it manifest itself? Well, joy results in praise. When we irrevocably have joy in our heavenly Father we can not help but praise Him. Joy can not be contained for very long, it must burst forth and create new waves of influence. That's not to say that joy has to be fleeting, here for a second and gone the next. Actually, joy is contagious and replicating. Joy isn't just a production, it's a reproduction.
I'm giving a lot of shout outs to John Piper today, but I think he makes some good points about the relationship between our joy and God's glory. Here's something else he says...
"The most obvious fact about praise- whether of God or anything- strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it... We praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until is is expressed in praise... So if God loves us enough to make our joy full, He must not only give us Himself; He must also win from us the praise of our hearts- not because He needs to shore up some weakness in Himself or compensate for some deficiency, but because He loves us and seeks the fullness of our joy that can be found only in knowing and praising Him, the most magnificent of all Beings. If He is truly for us, He must be for himself!"
Daang. Ok so what John is saying is this; if we want to have complete joy in God, then we must praise him. It's ok to enjoy God. It's ok to delight in Him. It's more than ok. It's a good thing! But a part of this is praising Him.
It's interesting because believe it or not, I did not plan this blog today at all. I did not plan on feeling like I was in a pit with the rest of mankind last night and I also did not plan on what happened this morning in the shower.
Now remember the context here. Heavy heart, overwhelming sadness for humankind. Trapped. Stuck. Then I open my Bible and read Psalm 23. And I pray. I pray for release from the chains that hold me down. For the chains that hold down the people that I love. I pray for freedom. I pray for joy. And finally after the tears and prayers have fully escaped me, I go to sleep. Fast forward to the morning. Before class I decided to download some new music by Bethel Live and Jesus Culture. There's this one song called Glorious by John and Katie Torwalt that is AWESOME. I put it on while I was in the shower. And all of a sudden, I am overcome with pure joy. At the risk of some chuckles and lapses in my reputation I will digress into what happened next.
I started dancing. In the shower. Alone. I sing along with my laptop as it plays the melody that has managed to move my soul. To move my mind. To move my heart. And yes, even my body. I have a brief moment of fear that I will fall and severely injure myself but it is fleeting and I just keep on dancing and singing. I just keep praising. Because I felt joy. And the praise led to more joy. And the joy led to more praise. Again, joy produces and it reproduces. And I know, in that moment, that nothing in this world can bring me more joy than my heavenly Father. Only my shepherd can bring me such joy. Only my shepherd can restore my soul.
No pit is too deep for your heavenly Father. No chains too strong. No sin too dark for his light.
Going back to the last part of Psalm 23 above...
Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."
We all have pits. We all have dark places. We all have struggles. We all feel stuck sometimes. But even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we declare that we will fear no evil, for our God is with us. Our shepherd is with us always. Watching over us. Seeing us. Knowing us. Comforting us.
In Him is the fullness of joy. So whatever you're dealing with, whatever is chaining you down, whatever weight is on your soul, pray for joy. But most importantly remember: PRAISE HIM. Dance naked in your shower. Sing at the top of your lungs. David did this too as I recall, just not in his shower. At any moment Stephen could have come in and exposed me in my moment of pure joy. Yes he is my husband but I still would have been embarassed. I will try not to be so embarrassed about my joy. Joy is so good. And there's only one way to get it.
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