1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
It is the will of God for us in Christ to rejoice, be in communication with God at all times, and be thankful in and for everything. That is the normal Christian life, period. And now I can’t find the word to continue because there shouldn’t be a “but” after that sentence. But as I’ve said before, I find myself not experiencing the joy that is offered to me in Christ Jesus.
Recently, I found myself in an emotional whirlwind, and a friend asked, “Have you given thanks?” My honest answer was yes. A little bit later, they asked it again in a different way. “Were you really grateful?” Ouch. Was I? I was in turmoil, so there was no way I could answer yes. They shared with me what helps them get to a place of genuine gratitude: hearing from God. Hearing from God and getting His perspective on any given situation helps their heart line up with God’s; then they can be genuinely grateful, not just say thank you.
Well, that sounds like 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. So, the pray without ceasing is part of what enables you to give thanks in everything? Then, if my heart is not truly grateful, can I reverse engineer this and say I need to talk with God and keep at it until I hear Him, and then a thankful heart will naturally flow out of that? OK, that makes sense to me because I already know from experience that I can’t just make my heart grateful by telling it to be that way. And here it comes again…BUT that communication thing with God is not flowing so well for me at the moment, so what do I do now? Well, “rejoice always” comes before the “pray without ceasing” part of the sentence, so is there something to that? Hummm…Rejoice…JOY…Hope?
Wait a minute, let me get this straight. The joy comes first? Then, communication with God flows, resulting in me having a grateful heart? Oh no! This joy journey is even bigger and more foundational than I ever imagined. I know joy isn’t anything I have to produce. I’m not under any condemnation about it. I just want to unravel how to begin to experience and live in the joy offered to me.
Now, back to my line of thinking: Rejoice, Joy, Hope. Rejoice…that means joy or expressing joy, right? Does God want me to be phony and outwardly “rejoice” if it isn’t a genuine expression of inward joy? Of course not. Not anymore that He would want me to say thank you, but have an ungrateful heart. So, what do I do with that? One explanation I found of “rejoice,” as it is used in the Bible, is that it is “a call to joy.” I love that particular wording. It just does it for me. (smile) From now on, when I see “rejoice” in the Bible, I want to think of it as a call to joy. As Bishop says, “You don’t have to, but you get to.”
So, next time you find yourself having difficulty giving thanks, or talking to God, or rejoicing, STOP, realize you have the opportunity to rejoice (It really is an option for you.), and then make your choice. Do you want to join God’s party (because His party is always going on) or stay at your pity party? Or maybe it’s not a pity party, but you are experiencing something less than joy and a grateful heart. At that moment, you really do have the option to join Him at His joy party. You don’t have to be the life of the party (that is Jesus’ job). You just have to choose to go, and God will meet you there. Just thinking about God’s party and that I have a choice (a way out of this icky feeling place) makes my heart lighter.
I’m not saying that should fix everything, and you should poof, be over whatever! I’m saying it’s a great place to start if you want to “get well.” You really do have a joy-filled choice available to you, not the lesser of two evils. You do not have to stay in a miserable place, and you don’t have to find a way to make yourself joyful. That gives me hope.
I know I’m stopping in mid-word-stream, but I’ll talk more about hope later.