One fateful day, I tremblingly got down on my knees with my brand-new Bible open on the bed in front of me. I couldn’t pray! All I could do was will myself to stay there as my best friend looked at me in shock. Then I heard the door open, and she called out to the girls down the corridor, “Come here and look at this! She’s gone cuckoo!” As I heard the footsteps coming along the corridor to “look at this,” a huge sense of joy engulfed me. I think joy is feeling God’s pleasure.
So many people think joy is experiencing their own pleasure. But it doesn’t work like that. When we bring joy and delight to the heart of God, He lets us know that deep down inside us, and our heart smiles. When Jesus sent the larger group of His disciples out to minister in His name for the first time, they returned full of excited stories of what had happened. They also “returned with joy” (Luke 10:17). “Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirt, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure’” (Luke 10:21). When we are doing the Father’s good pleasure—the things He has called and gifted us to do—His joy is transferred to our hearts, strengthening us to please Him. After all, “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). When Olympic sprinter Eric Liddell ran, he experienced the joy of God. “God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure,” he said.
As I knelt there by my bed in college, I felt His pleasure, too. I knew I was exactly where I ought to be, doing what I should be doing even if it meant the end of my friendships, which it did.
Whatever small challenge you are facing today, never underestimate its importance. God is strengthening you along the way for the better challenges ahead.
It might be that you do His will and your heart smiles but other hearts frown, or worse, scowl! You may feel God’s pleasure while others are incensed. In the same passage that Jesus talks about the disciples knowing His joy and their joy being full, He talks about the world hating Him (John 17:13-14). The forces of evil are not moved by our joy. In fact, their fury knows no bounds when they come across joyful Christians, and they set about wiping the joy off our faces. They do this by entering the arena of our testing and trying to use it to their advantage. But God is on our side, and we shall not be moved, even in the greatest trials.
In Christ,
Jill Briscoe
When life isn’t going your way, it can be difficult to find joy. Thankfully, God always provides the opportunity to find true joy in even the most difficult situations. For God is a God of joy. May these devotions on finding joy help you see that the secret to finding true joy can only be found in the presence of God.