From Grief to Joy

I was mad at the world, at coronavirus, at the news, media, politicians. You name it. I was mad. I went to bed mad. That’s never a good thing. Sleep eludes you when you’re mad. It was a fitful night, so by 4:00 A.M. I was ready to get up. What do you say to the Lord in your morning prayer time when you’re mad like that? I decided to just tell Him how mad, mad, mad I was. Like a dark thunder cloud, I dumped all of my mad on His listening ears. It felt good to get it out, but it didn’t solve anything. You need some resolution when you’re mad. “Lord, help me understand. Help me see clearly through all of this,” I pleaded. Instead of starting my new Bible study, (I just couldn’t that morning.) I decided to run through my scripture memory cards. When I flipped to Nehemiah 8:10, I stopped. “Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength,” God’s word says. Do not grieve. Yes, that’s what I was doing: grieving the loss of the world I knew. I think we all are grieving in our own way. Better to acknowledge your grief and move through it than be stuck there. Bitterness grows on stagnant grief. “For the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Do you know what makes our LORD joyful? Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus endured the cross “for the joy set before Him.” His joy was the completed work of God, the Father, our salvation. Jude 24 tells us Jesus will present us blameless before the Father with joy – a picture of our salvation. Our salvation brings Him joy! Knowing we are saved in our Lord Jesus Christ is our strength to persevere. Hold on to this truth! Do not grieve. These things are temporal, but your salvation is eternal. Do not grieve. Fix your eyes on the Lord, for He is good. Do not grieve. Others need the message and hope of salvation, so there is much work to be done. “Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Those words do not change the situations around me, but they sure do change the way I look at them, the way I look at myself. It is necessary to grieve, but we are not to anchor there. God is still moving and He is still calling us to follow Him. So, let us not beach in the shallows where the waters stagnate, but in the deeper waters where the current flows, let us move with our Lord, allowing our grief to be washed away in His love and redemption, for the joy of the Lord is our strength.