Inexplainable Joy
This was my UM message one year ago today:
I Think God has many ways of showing us he loves us. He’s got big ways and small ways, both having the same underlying theme: The God who created everything is designing the way the Universe works to show us in many different ways that He loves us.
Romans 8:28, And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. “
I think we often completely look over these magnificent works of God. For example, how many times, do you wake up and say, “God, thank you that I’m breathing”? or even , “God thank you that the sun is shining?”
Well, I also think God has made each of us unique in that he shows us each in different ways that he loves us.
Have any of you seen the family guy movie? Good movie. Well, in one part Stewie tries to get the future version of himself to play the glad game. Basically, he lists the things that make him glad and these things put him in a better mood. The things Stewie states make him glad include: A pinwheel, a big wedge of cake from the fair, a doo-dad for his hat, and the first cut into a fresh piece of construction paper.
So, after seeing that movie, I went back and made my own glad game. Basically, I started listing all the things that just make me smile. Here’s what I came up with: Pink Clouds, clean sheets, being productive, clean wet hair, glassy water at the lake, and spinny doors. Those are just a few of the things that just kinda make me smile.
I think sometimes, going to Pepperdine, its easy to wake up and look outside and be amazed at God’s beautiful creation. I mean, look around, we have incredible sunsets over the ocean every single night. But I think its so easy to overlook the little things. A lot of us have studied abroad or traveled at some point. This little story was kind of an eye opener to me of how much we overlook: I got an e-mail from a friend of mine and it just kinda made me think about all the times I just overlook things. How many times I just go through my day to not even look up to the heavens and thank God for everything! So this e-mail talks about how they asked several college kids what they think is the 7 Wonders of the World. And the most votes were these: The Great Wall The Empire State Building Taj Mahal The Grand Canyon The Egyptian Pyramids The Grand Canal St. Peter's Basilica All These things are absolutely beautiful but what one girl wrote for her top seven means so much more. The one girl was asked why she did not finish her top seven wonders of the world, and she replied, " There are just to many to pick from" She proceeded by showing what she had and these were the seven she had: To see To hear To touch To smell To feel To laugh To love. How is that for an eye opener? But how much does that fit in with every one of our lives? How many times do we all totally overlook the wonders of seeing, hearing, laughing, loving, heck, living! And how much do we focus on the wonderful things that man has built?
I think God gives us little love notes every single day. Going back to my glad game, I think every time I get to go through a spinny door, or have a really productive day, or the water at the lake is perfect, its just God telling me in a little way that he loves me. For me, one of my favorite things in the world is pink clouds (well, I absolutely love clouds in general, but mainly pink clouds.) Think about sunrises and sunsets, they’re different every single day. Its like God is an artist and he gets to paint a new incredible sunset for every part of the world every night. And depending on where you are, you’re going to see it differently. Its like God paints us each our own personal sunset every single night. And if God is always working through everything, he is working through the sunrise and the sunset.
Going back to my pink cloud obsession, I’ve always seen pink clouds as another way God shows me he loves me. Pink clouds have always been a reminder to me that God is there in that moment and He is in control and he loves me. A pink cloud sunset is impossible to fully catch on film, so I just have to know in that moment, God telling me he loves me.
I’ve had countless moments where right when I needed to remember it most, I just happen to be walking outside and glance at the sunset and it’ll be filled with pink clouds. Or everything could be going perfectly fine, which is usually when I start thinking I can do all this on my own, and there’ll be pink clouds in the sky and its just my slap in the face that God is in control and he loves me and I cant do this on my own.
Here’s a little background on me first…I grew up in a Christian home. My parents have been married for almost 30 years. I’ve gone to church my entire life. I have 3 brothers; two older, one younger. I had what most people would see as the perfect childhood. My parents are self employed which allowed them to come to all my swim meets and choir concerts. I knew who God was in that place. I knew that there was a God who loved me and wanted the best for me. Sure, I had my set of hardships growing up. Bad things happened, people died, this Saturday is the 5-year anniversary of 4 of my friends being killed in a car accident, things weren’t always perfect, but they were pretty close. When I left for Heidelberg sophomore year, I had never been away from my entire family for more than a week. My two older brothers went to Pepperdine, so freshmen year, I always saw them and before that, having siblings so close in age and extremely involved parents, even church camps and mission trips had family there. I was surprisingly less homesick than I thought I would be, but I remember one night when everything fell apart. It was November, 2006. There was drama, there was sucky things happening with people I was close to, I was homesick and it was still 5 months until I got to see my family. I’m trying not to sound too dramatic here, but basically I felt like everyone I was close to had betrayed my trust and I just wanted to be home, even if just for a little bit. I had never felt so alone in my life. Don’t get me wrong, that year was the best year ever. I am forever grateful for that year and I wish so bad that I could go back, but when they say you have your highest highs and lowest lows abroad, its totally true. And this night was one of those lowest lows. I don’t cry, like ever. I don’t know why, but for some reason, it takes a lot for me to cry. But that night, I remember leaving the house and walking over to the castle by myself, like bawling my eyes out. I sat on the railing that overlooks the city. I sat there feeling sorry for myself and overwhelmed with thinking I had no one to go to. Wrong. It was at that moment, I looked up and noticed that it was the most incredible, pink cloud filled sunset I’d ever seen. I was there at the perfect moment. Sunsets don’t last long, but it was that perfect moment of the sunset that just completely takes your breath away. That was the first time I realized that my God is the same God as he is 10,000 miles from there at home. He is the same God today as when I was seven and life was a fairy tale. And its not like I went back and was just super happy about what had happened, but I was able to have a peace that allowed me to go mend some things and forgive some people. If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have a couple of the closest friends that I have today.
So this leads me to kind of the main point of what I’m talking about: joy. I think something God really wants for us and something that makes life so much more enjoyable is finding true joy. I’ve found in my life that the times that have challenged and stretched my faith the most are the times when everything else sucks and things aren’t going my way and when it totally doesn’t make sense to be joyful, but I’m able to find that in explainable joy that only comes from God.
This is one of my favorite quotes: “Joy isn’t necessarily being happy all the time. Happiness is simply a frequent by-product of having the unexplainable joy that can only be explained by the God who makes the impossible possible.”
I think its important to understand that true joy doesn’t mean you are happy all the time, so I also think its important to figure out what true joy really is.
From a biblical standpoint, here are some verses that talk about what joy is and how to find it:
Psalm 51:12- “Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and renew a right spirit within me”
This is in Psalms where David is confessing for sleeping with Bathsheba and having her husband killed. Obviously, David was feeling pretty crappy about himself at this point. David is begging God to give him that joy that come with just knowing that we have salvation in Christ. No matter what we’ve done, or where we are in life, even just that knowledge that we are saved by grace and that God loves us more than anything should evoke some sort of good feeling within.
4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7
Paul talks here about being joyful in the Lord and he doesn’t say anything about being happy. He says not to worry. He says by having this joy, you will have the peace of God.
On a personal note, I’m graduating in like 2.5 months. First of all, while I’m very sick of school, I am not excited about graduating. I kinda wish I could be in college forever, without having to go to class. Anyway, so far, I’ve been really good at not stressing out about what I’m doing next year slash with my life. I’ve been really good at being excited for God to do something amazing and knowing that he’s got things under control. However, there have definitely been a couple times, one in particular, that I sorta freaked out about having no idea what I was going to be doing or even what I wanted to be doing next year. A couple weeks ago, I had this huge breakdown. For some reason, in that moment, I just couldn’t be excited for having no control and knowing that He is going to do something incredible.
This verse really stood out to me that night cause its just saying that we need to be joyful and not to worry about anything, but instead of worrying, to just give it to God. Which is something that I know we’ve all heard a thousand times, but then its followed with “and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. I can’t explain or understand it, but all of a sudden, I had this incredible peace about next year and the years after that. Not that I really have any idea what’s going to happen or what I’ll be doing, but the more I give it to God, the more hints he gives me in what direction I should be going.
I don’t want you guys to get the impression that I think everything is perfect in the world and we can just frolic around being happy all the time, because that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying there is a lot of crap going on in the world, there’s a lot of crap in each of our own lives. One of my favorite things about clouds is that there’s that silver lining.
However, I don’t think its supposed to be the completely opposite either. I think sometimes, especially Christians, can be kind of masochistic. They find the pain and suffering of discipleship a pleasure. Suffering is their joy. This is unnatural. But, to some people, this is Christian.
While there is joy in suffering, there’s also joy coming out of the suffering. What I’m trying to say can pretty much be summed up between 4 verses and a quote from a book:
“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. John 16:20-24’
I think that passage is so cool. Pastor Greg talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago. He said that we need to stop looking for the easy way out of our hard times. These are the glory days. These are the days we’ll look back on and see how we came through these hard times. This is when we realize that God is doing something incredible in each of our lives. He’s using each person in this room, he’s using you to help other people. If God uses the sunset to tell me that He’s got it all under control, I cant even tell you how much he’s used the people closest to me and a lot of people in this room to bring me through tough times.
In, Eugene Peterson’s book, The Contemplative Pastor, he says, “Joy is the capacity to hear the name and recognize that God is here. There’s a kind of exhilaration because God is doing something and, even in a little way, its enough at the moment.”
Know that God is always working. Through the good times and the bad, he has a reason for all of it. And like He says in John, once you find that joy, don’t let anyone take away your joy
Find what it is for you that is God showing you he loves you. Find your pink clouds. Find that thing that gets you excited and you associate with God saying to you that He is in control and its all going to be ok. You’ll be amazed at when these things happen.
When we recognize these love notes from God its easier to see that God really is working through everything. He created it, he can do anything he wants with it.
And really...Who better to put our trust in than the only one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever? He’s the same God as when you were a kid and everything seemed perfect. He’s the same God who has brought you through the toughest times and the same God who parted the red sea. Who better to trust than the god who gave us breath and created the universe and made the lilies and made you, uniquely you.
I Think God has many ways of showing us he loves us. He’s got big ways and small ways, both having the same underlying theme: The God who created everything is designing the way the Universe works to show us in many different ways that He loves us.
Romans 8:28, And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. “
I think we often completely look over these magnificent works of God. For example, how many times, do you wake up and say, “God, thank you that I’m breathing”? or even , “God thank you that the sun is shining?”
Well, I also think God has made each of us unique in that he shows us each in different ways that he loves us.
Have any of you seen the family guy movie? Good movie. Well, in one part Stewie tries to get the future version of himself to play the glad game. Basically, he lists the things that make him glad and these things put him in a better mood. The things Stewie states make him glad include: A pinwheel, a big wedge of cake from the fair, a doo-dad for his hat, and the first cut into a fresh piece of construction paper.
So, after seeing that movie, I went back and made my own glad game. Basically, I started listing all the things that just make me smile. Here’s what I came up with: Pink Clouds, clean sheets, being productive, clean wet hair, glassy water at the lake, and spinny doors. Those are just a few of the things that just kinda make me smile.
I think sometimes, going to Pepperdine, its easy to wake up and look outside and be amazed at God’s beautiful creation. I mean, look around, we have incredible sunsets over the ocean every single night. But I think its so easy to overlook the little things. A lot of us have studied abroad or traveled at some point. This little story was kind of an eye opener to me of how much we overlook: I got an e-mail from a friend of mine and it just kinda made me think about all the times I just overlook things. How many times I just go through my day to not even look up to the heavens and thank God for everything! So this e-mail talks about how they asked several college kids what they think is the 7 Wonders of the World. And the most votes were these: The Great Wall The Empire State Building Taj Mahal The Grand Canyon The Egyptian Pyramids The Grand Canal St. Peter's Basilica All These things are absolutely beautiful but what one girl wrote for her top seven means so much more. The one girl was asked why she did not finish her top seven wonders of the world, and she replied, " There are just to many to pick from" She proceeded by showing what she had and these were the seven she had: To see To hear To touch To smell To feel To laugh To love. How is that for an eye opener? But how much does that fit in with every one of our lives? How many times do we all totally overlook the wonders of seeing, hearing, laughing, loving, heck, living! And how much do we focus on the wonderful things that man has built?
I think God gives us little love notes every single day. Going back to my glad game, I think every time I get to go through a spinny door, or have a really productive day, or the water at the lake is perfect, its just God telling me in a little way that he loves me. For me, one of my favorite things in the world is pink clouds (well, I absolutely love clouds in general, but mainly pink clouds.) Think about sunrises and sunsets, they’re different every single day. Its like God is an artist and he gets to paint a new incredible sunset for every part of the world every night. And depending on where you are, you’re going to see it differently. Its like God paints us each our own personal sunset every single night. And if God is always working through everything, he is working through the sunrise and the sunset.
Going back to my pink cloud obsession, I’ve always seen pink clouds as another way God shows me he loves me. Pink clouds have always been a reminder to me that God is there in that moment and He is in control and he loves me. A pink cloud sunset is impossible to fully catch on film, so I just have to know in that moment, God telling me he loves me.
I’ve had countless moments where right when I needed to remember it most, I just happen to be walking outside and glance at the sunset and it’ll be filled with pink clouds. Or everything could be going perfectly fine, which is usually when I start thinking I can do all this on my own, and there’ll be pink clouds in the sky and its just my slap in the face that God is in control and he loves me and I cant do this on my own.
Here’s a little background on me first…I grew up in a Christian home. My parents have been married for almost 30 years. I’ve gone to church my entire life. I have 3 brothers; two older, one younger. I had what most people would see as the perfect childhood. My parents are self employed which allowed them to come to all my swim meets and choir concerts. I knew who God was in that place. I knew that there was a God who loved me and wanted the best for me. Sure, I had my set of hardships growing up. Bad things happened, people died, this Saturday is the 5-year anniversary of 4 of my friends being killed in a car accident, things weren’t always perfect, but they were pretty close. When I left for Heidelberg sophomore year, I had never been away from my entire family for more than a week. My two older brothers went to Pepperdine, so freshmen year, I always saw them and before that, having siblings so close in age and extremely involved parents, even church camps and mission trips had family there. I was surprisingly less homesick than I thought I would be, but I remember one night when everything fell apart. It was November, 2006. There was drama, there was sucky things happening with people I was close to, I was homesick and it was still 5 months until I got to see my family. I’m trying not to sound too dramatic here, but basically I felt like everyone I was close to had betrayed my trust and I just wanted to be home, even if just for a little bit. I had never felt so alone in my life. Don’t get me wrong, that year was the best year ever. I am forever grateful for that year and I wish so bad that I could go back, but when they say you have your highest highs and lowest lows abroad, its totally true. And this night was one of those lowest lows. I don’t cry, like ever. I don’t know why, but for some reason, it takes a lot for me to cry. But that night, I remember leaving the house and walking over to the castle by myself, like bawling my eyes out. I sat on the railing that overlooks the city. I sat there feeling sorry for myself and overwhelmed with thinking I had no one to go to. Wrong. It was at that moment, I looked up and noticed that it was the most incredible, pink cloud filled sunset I’d ever seen. I was there at the perfect moment. Sunsets don’t last long, but it was that perfect moment of the sunset that just completely takes your breath away. That was the first time I realized that my God is the same God as he is 10,000 miles from there at home. He is the same God today as when I was seven and life was a fairy tale. And its not like I went back and was just super happy about what had happened, but I was able to have a peace that allowed me to go mend some things and forgive some people. If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have a couple of the closest friends that I have today.
So this leads me to kind of the main point of what I’m talking about: joy. I think something God really wants for us and something that makes life so much more enjoyable is finding true joy. I’ve found in my life that the times that have challenged and stretched my faith the most are the times when everything else sucks and things aren’t going my way and when it totally doesn’t make sense to be joyful, but I’m able to find that in explainable joy that only comes from God.
This is one of my favorite quotes: “Joy isn’t necessarily being happy all the time. Happiness is simply a frequent by-product of having the unexplainable joy that can only be explained by the God who makes the impossible possible.”
I think its important to understand that true joy doesn’t mean you are happy all the time, so I also think its important to figure out what true joy really is.
From a biblical standpoint, here are some verses that talk about what joy is and how to find it:
Psalm 51:12- “Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and renew a right spirit within me”
This is in Psalms where David is confessing for sleeping with Bathsheba and having her husband killed. Obviously, David was feeling pretty crappy about himself at this point. David is begging God to give him that joy that come with just knowing that we have salvation in Christ. No matter what we’ve done, or where we are in life, even just that knowledge that we are saved by grace and that God loves us more than anything should evoke some sort of good feeling within.
4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7
Paul talks here about being joyful in the Lord and he doesn’t say anything about being happy. He says not to worry. He says by having this joy, you will have the peace of God.
On a personal note, I’m graduating in like 2.5 months. First of all, while I’m very sick of school, I am not excited about graduating. I kinda wish I could be in college forever, without having to go to class. Anyway, so far, I’ve been really good at not stressing out about what I’m doing next year slash with my life. I’ve been really good at being excited for God to do something amazing and knowing that he’s got things under control. However, there have definitely been a couple times, one in particular, that I sorta freaked out about having no idea what I was going to be doing or even what I wanted to be doing next year. A couple weeks ago, I had this huge breakdown. For some reason, in that moment, I just couldn’t be excited for having no control and knowing that He is going to do something incredible.
This verse really stood out to me that night cause its just saying that we need to be joyful and not to worry about anything, but instead of worrying, to just give it to God. Which is something that I know we’ve all heard a thousand times, but then its followed with “and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. I can’t explain or understand it, but all of a sudden, I had this incredible peace about next year and the years after that. Not that I really have any idea what’s going to happen or what I’ll be doing, but the more I give it to God, the more hints he gives me in what direction I should be going.
I don’t want you guys to get the impression that I think everything is perfect in the world and we can just frolic around being happy all the time, because that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying there is a lot of crap going on in the world, there’s a lot of crap in each of our own lives. One of my favorite things about clouds is that there’s that silver lining.
However, I don’t think its supposed to be the completely opposite either. I think sometimes, especially Christians, can be kind of masochistic. They find the pain and suffering of discipleship a pleasure. Suffering is their joy. This is unnatural. But, to some people, this is Christian.
While there is joy in suffering, there’s also joy coming out of the suffering. What I’m trying to say can pretty much be summed up between 4 verses and a quote from a book:
“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. John 16:20-24’
I think that passage is so cool. Pastor Greg talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago. He said that we need to stop looking for the easy way out of our hard times. These are the glory days. These are the days we’ll look back on and see how we came through these hard times. This is when we realize that God is doing something incredible in each of our lives. He’s using each person in this room, he’s using you to help other people. If God uses the sunset to tell me that He’s got it all under control, I cant even tell you how much he’s used the people closest to me and a lot of people in this room to bring me through tough times.
In, Eugene Peterson’s book, The Contemplative Pastor, he says, “Joy is the capacity to hear the name and recognize that God is here. There’s a kind of exhilaration because God is doing something and, even in a little way, its enough at the moment.”
Know that God is always working. Through the good times and the bad, he has a reason for all of it. And like He says in John, once you find that joy, don’t let anyone take away your joy
Find what it is for you that is God showing you he loves you. Find your pink clouds. Find that thing that gets you excited and you associate with God saying to you that He is in control and its all going to be ok. You’ll be amazed at when these things happen.
When we recognize these love notes from God its easier to see that God really is working through everything. He created it, he can do anything he wants with it.
And really...Who better to put our trust in than the only one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever? He’s the same God as when you were a kid and everything seemed perfect. He’s the same God who has brought you through the toughest times and the same God who parted the red sea. Who better to trust than the god who gave us breath and created the universe and made the lilies and made you, uniquely you.
Comments
Post a Comment