Pesky Circumstances

We Hunting Wabbits

If you’ve ever attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting you might have heard the acronym H.A.L.T. It’s a tool used to remind people of four of the most common stressors in recovery. Their counsel is to not make important decisions when you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Good advice, right! I even take it a step further and at these times try not to think too much about the things in life that aren’t exactly the way I’d like them. That’s because I know me, and I know that I tend let bad circumstance’s steal my joy.

And I’m perplexed………Aren’t Christians supposed to be joyful? 

Jesus himself tells us in John 15:7-11, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be given to you. When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow.”

Galatians really tops it off by saying that joy is a result of the Holy Spirit living in us. 

So I have just one question, would you describe yourself as joyful? 

I desperately want to be…….but I don’t think I am, not entirely. It’s never been something I felt I had direct control over, but if it’s command, shouldn’t it be under my control? When I look back on my years as a follower of Jesus, overflowing with joy is not the first descriptor that pops into my head. Faithful…largely, obedient…mostly, and diligent…certainly. But joyful….not particularly. But I want to be! I want to be that person and I worry because I’m not. I want to grow wings and fly out of the struggling-for-joy crowd.

I just don’t believe God would command me to do something that wasn’t possible for me to do. No doubt it would be a lot easier if I had a joy switch that would empower the Holy Spirit to take over my body and turn me into the epitome of cheerfulness. That hasn’t happened yet and the upgrade doesn’t appear to be coming anytime soon. So in the meantime, this entire topic reminds me that we have work to do as followers. Most of my life I thought all you really needed was sign on with Jesus and quit worrying because the hard part was over. Maybe show up for that hour on Sunday but mostly just raise your hand and say I’m in. Obviously, I didn’t read my Bible much when I believed such and that’s probably why it never took! As I considered the fickle state of my joy, it occurred to me that the Apostle Paul already addressed how to fix my joy problem.

Colossians 3:2-3 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.

Phillipians 4:8 Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

I know, I know………it sounds really good until something happens that makes your head spin around backwards and lovely and pure sounds like a new brand of cat food. And at just this moment the devil starts to whisper that things are worse than ever and it’s just a short tumble into the lake of discouragement. Paul told us how to fix the problem but didn’t get too detailed when it came to implementation.

Strangely, thinking on this made me think of my running. I started running in prison because initially I was kind of mad at everything and for some reason it kind of stuck. Especially when I figured out that being exhausted really helped me sleep on those medieval mattresses. These days I run maybe twenty miles a week, whenever I can fit it in.

It’s not bad in the winter but let me tell you, when the temps get up like they have lately, it can be a house of horrors. Your body directs blood towards cooling your body and less is available for your muscles. What that means for me is I hit a wall much earlier than normal and it’s a struggle just to keep going. I’ve found that it's absolutely imperative to plan. When I say plan, I mean that I literally map out a conversation that I’m going to have with myself later in the day. It sounds really weird when I write it down like this, but in essence, I plan what I’m going to think about once I start feeling fatigued in my run. I’ve got to have a plan for when trouble hits or my next thoughts are, “Why am I putting myself through this? I hate running! Why am I doing this?” But if I’ve planned ahead and have a topic I can dive into, it takes my conscious mind’s focus away from my fatigue. For example, I’ve written this entire newsletter in my head several times. Lately I’ve preoccupied myself with thoughts about living life with two new grandchildren who are arriving in the next couple months. The point is you’ve got to be prepared and ready or you’ll be calling someone to come pick you up off the side of the road.

I wonder if maybe that’s where I go wrong with joy. Unforeseen circumstances get on top of me and because I’m not prepared, I’m suddenly wondering how things got so bad so quickly. Wondering why God won’t answer my prayers? Thinking there’s something that I should do differently that might garner a response from God. Then I can really get the pity party going by determining that life’s always going to be hard and God’s probably not paying any attention anyway. It goes downhill fast with me. 

But what if my very first response when calamity hits is to tell myself that God is in complete and utter control. That nothing happens in this universe without His consent. That no matter what it looks like to me, He’s got me in the palm of His hand. To ask myself if it makes any sense that He would personally suffer to save me and then let me go on my merry way without making sure I made it home safely. It seems sort of stupid to believe God would sacrifice His own son, who would then willingly die, all so they could head back to Heaven and leave us down here to be picked off one by one. Seems unlikely. Tell the truth, they’ve got a lot more skin in the game than we do.

In the end, joy is simply the deep conviction that God is in complete control.