I need peace.
I heard a sermon yesterday about joy at genesis. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great hearing about joy and how all Christians can have it because some guy died on a cross 2000 years ago. But that doesn’t do much for right now. And I know all the good theological answers about how to rejoice in the rough times and even how James talks about joy in suffering. But that doesn’t do much in the here and now.
Sure, sit an read Job, knowing the ending thinking… well, I’d do a better job than Job of trusting God. But sit and watch your wife die, or lose your job, or whatever and tell me about joy. My mom has a rock that she painted a long time ago. Between the dainty flowers are the words, “Joy in not it things, it is in us.” I like that, because it is honest enough to admit that you cannot find joy in life. This world is a hell-hole. Sure there are glimplses of another time and another place, of the way it was created to be. But they are only found through the cracks of a hungry, disease infested, selfish, broken, consuming world. There is no joy in all that….
But somehow, there is still joy in the world. It comes from within, but not of ourselves.
You can’t manufacture it or reproduce it.
It cannot be expected.
It willnot be contained.
It’s infectious.
And while the words, “Jesus Christ died for the atonement of your sins” alone cannot give you joy; those small moments of realization, where the warmth of his love and the impact of his grace strike you between the ribs and sink into your heart. In those moments there are joy.
It must be the American consumerist in me that is stupid enough to “need” to get joy NOW. Wanting it to come in a shiny celephane package (15% off of course). Knowing but ignoring the fact that to do so would water down that joy and desensitize me to its, well, joy.
I’m gonna go eat some chocolate. I hear there’s joy in that.
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