Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven

“Joy is the serious business of heaven”

Jeff Lampl
“God richly provides us with everything to enjoy”

                                    1 Timothy 6:17

If you want to experience joy you must . . . .

begin where you are.   God gives us joy in moments.  They are serendipities, moments of pleasure that intrude into our days.   The unexpected comforting smile from a cashier at Walmart just when you are feeling hurried, ungrateful and moody.   The glimpse of the beauty that comes to you through a moment’s glance out the window at a sunset while driving home from work, the momentary breath of the warm fresh scented air of spring.  

We, as least I, give those moments little thought most of the time, but I and we are wrong in doing so.   They are more than a cashier’s smile, far more than the beauty and freshness of nature.   These “pleasures are shafts of the glory of God itself” as they intrude on our self-preoccupied lives. 

Even bad pleasures are a means for God’s glory to visit us.   Stealing fruit from the Grocery store is bad.  But the taste of the fruit is still sweet.  The taste is a “shaft of the glory of God itself” which has been granted to us.   Of course the taste doesn’t make the stealing okay.   It makes it worse because in the stealing we have desecrated a holy gift of God.

So, just begin where you are today.  Give thanks for all the ways that God’s glory breaks through into your life today.  Notice all the little things that you take for granted, but shouldn’t.   It’s usually the “little things” that give life its greatest value.

BUT don’t stop with gratitude.  Gratitude is not enough.   These serendipitous “shafts of God’s glory” must become adoration.  

Kathy and I love the chirping of the birds in the early morning just outside our bedroom window when we wake up.  But is the chirping just birds chirping?   If I remove the “just” and realize that I am being “touched” by something more than “just birds chirping”, that the birds’ “singing” (notice how we even turn our language about the sounds the birds make into something more) is in reality a conduit, a means, a revelation, a brief taste of the world that is, that was and that will be to come.   It’s like, no, it is a momentary experience of God and of Heaven itself.

Gratitude says “thank you God for the gift of this moment”.   Adoration says, “I have just gotten a glimpse of God Himself” and I am humbled and amazed not only at having been given a gift, but also at God Himself.   I am grateful for he gift, but more than that I am humbled having been touched by the “finger of God”.  I praise not the gift, but Him.

There is no pleasure that is too ordinary to be dismissed as “just a pleasure”.*

"Lord, there are so many, many, many ways that Heaven, and You, Yourself, intersect with my daily life.   Give me today “ears to hear, eyes to see and mind to conceive” not just what you have prepared for each of us in the future, but also and especially what you present to us of yourself each and every day.  Amen"

*Today’s comments were inspired by C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Malcolm, chapter 17

Joy - Part 3

Joy – Part 3

By Megann Graf

Hopefully you can read the picture above.  It’s what this whole blog is about.   “Today, we will practice our faith – because we will practice joy.  Practice thankfulness.  Practice counting gifts.  We repent of too often forgetting that we are the Resurrection people and joy is our endless refrain.”-
Ann Voskamp from her Lent to Repent devotional

J

oy is our endless refrain?  Again, I do so miserably at this.  Just when I think I am doing well, that darn poo gets in the way.  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read last week’s blog J )

But, notice how she mentions and phrases this grasping of joy…something we need to practice.  Practice.  It’s not going to come naturally.  Giving thanks, doesn’t come naturally.  Smiling when I feel crummy isn’t easy.  These are things I have to practice.  I’ve also been reading Ann Voskamp’s book “One Thousand Gifts” where she challenges you to write down 1,000 things you are thankful for.  I started last week, trying to write down 10 each day.  Do you know over the weekend, I was in such a funk, that I didn’t write anything down.  Nothing.  I live in a free country. I have two healthy children. I have a husband who loves me.  I have a home with heat and water.  And I wrote nothing.  Wow.  That’ll wake you up and slap you once you stare it in the face.  I was mad at people, and I wanted to be mad at people.  Practicing joy then would have been hard.  I had the right to be upset with my kids.  They were being brats.  So was I.  (Gosh darn these stupid, hard, incredible lessons that I have to learn from my kids.)  I had to rise above.  I had to practice joy.  I had to practice thankfulness.  I had to, because I WANT joy to be my endless refrain.  I really do.  Who wouldn’t?  But, it’s something money cannot buy.  I can’t save up for it.  I have to put effort into having that kind of life.  I have to overcome pride and self-justification and defeat the lies that the world so desperately wants me to believe.  I’ve heard it said that so often we stand with our fists clenched at the world, at God, and we question everything, instead of standing with our hands wide open, giving over everything.   When we can give up, that’s when He can get in.  And when He can get in, joy will come.  It has to.  His ultimate purpose is for us to know Him and to find peace and joy and grace and salvation in Him. 

This week is Palm Sunday.  A day when people celebrated Jesus coming, and a week later they were the same people who crucified Him.  They let their emotions take over.  One day praising Him and shouting “Hosanna” and the next week shouting “crucify Him.”  When I let my pride take over my joy, I am shouting the same thing.  I am, in my modern day way, telling God that what his son did on the cross for me just wasn’t enough.

 “Father forgive me.  Give me the strength to practice joy, practice thankfulness every day.  Not just on good days.  Not just when the sun is shining. Not just when kids are behaving.  But every day.  Every. Single. Day. 

Because God, what Jesus did was enough.  And even when I don’t know why things are happening, I know You are good.  I know that You love me.  And, I know that joy is a choice I must choose, just like receiving Your love is a choice.  I am part of a resurrection people!   I want joy to be my endless refrain.  Something that lasts.  Something not built on earthly emotions but on sacred truths.  Lord, may those reading this today, not just feel Your joy, but KNOW Your joy.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.” 

Signposts to Joy

Signposts to Joy

Jeff Lampl

One of my favorite passages in the entire Bible is. . . .

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”       Hebrews 11:13-16 (NIV)

Have you ever noticed a feeling within you that you aren’t quite at home yet?   Have you ever felt that there must be “something more?” 

Christianity tells us that we are citizens of Heaven and that in this world we are ex-pats, displaced persons, people who know we are made for a “home” that we’ve never been to, but which deep down inside we know must exist.   When we recognize this we are on the path to joy.  When we refuse to acknowledge this we harden ourselves to reality, to the hope of ever finding our true home.  As always, C.S. Lewis puts it best

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

If you and I are really paying attention we will also recognize that there is something in us that continually and relentlessly seeks to substitute something of this world for the real thing.    If we are made for heaven, that desire is already in us and it will even appear to us as a rival to heaven.  Any this-worldy good on which we fix our hopes, dreams, attentions and desires will always be something other than the real thing.   In some sense it will always be a fraud or at best a symbolic representation of what we really seek.

But, this is good news!    It seems to me that when one experiences an improper desire for an object, or even for a another person,  that is simply a signpost, a pointer, an awakening to the reality that a proper fulfillment of that desire actually exists.  

Personally, I fully identify with those who refer to this kind of yet unfulfilled longing as joy.   In this way of thinking joy is the piercing stab of longing that knows that yearning will one day meet its fulfillment, indeed its Creator.  

Thinking of it this way, would you ever want to lose your desire for something, your un- or never fully requited loves, your unfulfilled yearnings, and with them all the signposts that point to the future state of experiencing everything your heart ever truly yearned for?

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

2 Corinthians 7:10

2 Corinthians 7:10

Jeff Lampl

One of the great verses in the New Testament is . . . . .

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.    2 Corinthians 7:10 (NIV)

The apostle Paul had written a “painful letter” to the believers in Corinth, a church of between 50 and 100 members (2 Corinthians is a conflation of Paul’s 2^nd and 3^rd letter to Corinth).  In this painful letter, Paul reprimanded the believers and the believers were heartbroken.  They were sorry for their behavior.  And their sorrow led to repentance, to their changing.  The pain led to a fresh new start in life.  Sorrow that leads to an honest look in the mirror and results in regret, repentance and change is salvific.   It is the path to salvation, to freedom, to acceptance by God, to the repair of relationships, to release from self-condemnation, to the acceptance of God’s forgiveness.   It feels good after feeling really, really bad.

On the other hand, there is a kind of sorrow that is worse than useless.   It is a sorrow that carries with regret, remorse, apologies, tears, the most outward expressions of grief, yet without inward change.   This kind of sorrow often “works” in the short run, often eliciting forgiveness and even sympathy from the person wronged.   But without inner change expressed in changed actions, it simply turns one into a deceiver, sooner or later found out by others and sooner or later resulting in a hardened, untransformed, self-justifying, even irredeemable heart.

Worldly sorrow is the path to death, to the death any hope of the joy of the Lord in this life and it is the path, if unrepentantly followed, to eternal death.   Alternatively, Godly sorrow is the most potent path to the joy of Lord, because it is the path of humility.    And it is only in humility that we can meet God.  And it is only in the Lord that joy can be found.

As always, C.S. Lewis says it succinctly and profoundly, 

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Lewis Smedes writes

“You and I were created for joy and if we miss it, we miss the reason for our existence. . . . if our joy is honest joy, it must somehow be congruous with human tragedy. This is the test of joy’s integrity: is it compatible with pain? . . . Only the heart that hurts has the right to joy”

It is joy, not happiness, that can carry us when life’s pain is overwhelming.   It is also the pain of seeing myself as I really am before God, unholy, in need of change, in need of being changed, of being given the fresh start in life that I cannot achieve without God.

“Lord, grant me the humility that relinquishes self-justification, excuses, quick fixes, and denial.  Help me to see myself as I really am before you, deeply in trouble, but deeply loved.  Lord, I renounce the pride of defensiveness and the deceit of worldly sorrow.  Instead I choose godly repentance, that sorrow that leads to your forgiveness, freedom and confidence in your love, all of which combine to become a strength that I can call joy.  Amen”

JOY

JOY

Jeff Lampl

In this Psalm David defines joy as. . . .

 something solid.   Notice verse 7.   He differentiates joy from the happiness that depends on favorable circumstances. Vs 8 tells us the result of that which circumstances, be they bad or good, cannot provide.  I hope you take your time in reading on this Psalm.   Chew on it (Ezekiel 3:1-3).  Notice the pleas, the longing, the waiting, yet in spite of unfulfilled yearning, trust.   This it seems to me is ground zero of joy. . . .confidence in God.  
Love, Jeff

For the music leader. With stringed instruments. A psalm of David.

“Answer me when I cry out, my righteous God!
    Set me free from my troubles!
        Have mercy on me!
        Listen to my prayer!

² How long, you people,
    will my reputation be insulted?
How long will you continue
    to love what is worthless
    and go after lies? Selah
³ Know this: the Lord takes
    personal care of the faithful.
The Lord will hear me
    when I cry out to him.
⁴ So be afraid, and don’t sin!
    Think hard about it in your bed
    and weep over it! Selah
⁵ Bring righteous offerings,
    and trust the Lord!

⁶ Many people say,
    “We can’t find goodness anywhere.
    The light of your face has left us, Lord!”
⁷ But you have filled my heart with more joy
    than when their wheat and wine are everywhere!
⁸ I will lie down and fall asleep in peace
    because you alone, Lord, let me live in safety.”

Ephesus- Lost First Love

Ephesus – Lost First Love

  Jeff Lampl

Is it possible to be diligent, hard working and self-sacrificial, even . . . .  
loving, but to still “miss the boat?”

As I was reading the last book the Bible, Revelation (no “s”!), in preparation for next Wednesday night’s one night overview of this important book (you’re invited!), I read the passage below where Jesus is addressing a church of about 3 dozen believers in a city of about 250,000, the vast majority of whom were enthusiastically joining the new and quickly spreading religion of Caesar Worship (which also went under the name of “gospel” or  “good news”), but the city also contained thousands of Jews who were vehemently against the spread of this new “Jesus cult”. 

Jesus tells the author of Revelation, John, to tell the Angel of Ephesus to tell the church members that they, although looking like a terrific church from the outside (and, yes, they look great to me, especially given the demographic odds and circumstances!), nevertheless they’re missing what actually matters.

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.  I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.  You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.  Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.  But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."    Revelation 2:1-7 (NIV2011)

“Repent and do the things you did at first. . .or I will remove your lampstand from its place . . . . who has ears let him hear”.  Strong words!

So, I am asking myself, what were those things that I did at first, that I have stopped doing or perhaps have continued to do but with a heart that’s grown cold.    One thing I’ve noticed is that I have the capacity do loving things, but without love.  I can, for example, serve family members, but do so without being fully “there”.  I can do my Christian acts of service without actually listening to and taking into my heart and mind the actual people I am serving.   I can pray to God, read scripture, and write devotionals like this one, yet do so as a duty, hurriedly, dutifully, without being attentive to and receptive to  Jesus Himself.   It seems to me that Jesus doesn’t like this.  And he loves us enough to wake us up with some tough words.   It seems that when first things become second things and second things become first things we are then in danger of losing both.

“Lord, please give me ears to hear what your Spirit is saying to me,

and then the discipline and strength of character to act on you guidance”

Amen

Choosing Joy - Part 2

Choosing Joy - Part 2

By Megann Graf

This morning I had the chance to walk my son to school.  It was so nice out, and he was in a good mood (two pluses that don’t happen often!  Haha!)  So, we walked and talked about rattles snakes, and speed bumps that look bigger when you’re walking then when you’re driving, and about how he felt like he was hiking because he had on short sleeves and a backpack.  (I don’t know where these things come from people, this is just the mind of an 8 year old!)  We got to school and I had to ask for my kiss goodbye because he was going to run right in, but he came back and smooched me.  I walked away thinking that this was joy.  That just enjoying that moment is choosing joy over the million other things I could be fretting over.  And, I thought how it’s funny how humans (at least those living in the northeast) need days like this to feel the sun and breath the fresh air and remember that renewal is possible.  Even a store clerk told me that people were nicer when the weather was nice.  Funny how God uses so much of His creation to affect us and teach us. 

So, it was a lovely walk back to my house, thinking all these nice thoughts, and saying hi to other neighbors who seemed equally satisfied with the beautiful morning and grateful for a refreshing walk.   And then, it came.  Poop.  That’s right, poop.  Dog poop.  I was walking, and it was right there in the middle of the sidewalk, and I literally laughed out loud.  Why, laugh, you ask? 

Because, let’s face it, when we choose joy, we have to know that sometimes crap comes along, right in our path and out of no where.  We have to know how to deal with it.  We have to watch out for it.  We have to not allow the crap to get in the way of our joy.  (And, for goodness sake, try not to step in it!)  I never thought that I would be writing to you about how God made a lesson to me out of poop, but He does have a sense of humor.  The only way to deal with all the crap that life brings, and to deliberately choose joy, is to be in God’s word, to be in communication with Him daily, or hourly!  And to know that He wants to teach us how to live joyfully even when life is crappy.

So, today, as you breathe the fresh air, and you feel the sunshine and warmth and get a sense of renewal, not just in the season, but in your Spirit, take time to see the good.  Choose to be joyful about just one thing.  It’s likely that you might come across some crap in your path.  But, maybe you can laugh at it too.  Maybe God put it there to teach you something.  And, maybe, if you can find happiness through the crappiness, you might have just chosen joy.