What does it mean or look like to have the "joy of the Lord" in one's life? Is there a noticeable difference or is it only known and experienced by the individual? It would seem that to have this joy, one might see and experience events and emotions differently. As Henri Nouwen says, "We realize that joy is not a matter of balloons and parties, not owning a house, or even having our children succeed in school. It has to do with a deep experience - an experience with Christ." Now, does this "experience" refer to specific kind of experience? One in which we open our very selves, our identity, our wishes, desires, and motivations up before him and let him wash them and mold them unto himself. This can by no means be a singular event or a painless experience.
To allow God to wash us clean we have to first allow him access to that which is unclean within us. Those dark secrets and deepest wounds must be offered up to be healed and cleansed by our loving and merciful God. This in turn calls for immense trust; because the task is made very difficult if we first do not trust God to do what he said he would do. In addressing this trust, one must find and confront the barriers within that hinder them from placing their full trust and confidence in God. Even we who are believers in Christ withhold part of ourselves from God. When what is often our only reference point for trust is other humans we see that this trust is easily broken and not easily replaced. Thus we transfer this image of trust onto God because we don't know another way. Being saved does not remove our human reality and it is this reality that God must redeem.
It is far easier to acknowledge a good God from a distance. We can verbalize this truth without actually believing what we say or understanding what it really means. We can see his goodness from the Bible and in the things he has done in the lives of others, but if we have not personally experienced it, it becomes much harder to acknowledge and allow ourselves to accept it. A predominant reason is that quite often we don't think we are worthy of God's goodness. We feel that our sin is too great for even God to look at; we have too many things and God couldn't possibly want us still. This and a plethora of other reasons are barriers to accepting God's goodness and allowing ourselves to trust him. But even as we seek to understand our barriers we must invite Christ into this journey with us. If we have affirmed him as our God, then on some level we have intuited that he is who he says he is and as such we can acknowledge that his intentions are indeed pure and that he is motivated by a desire to love, redeem and sanctify us. Beyond this it is not too great a leap to believe he desire the ultimate good for us and is therefore trustworthy.
Once trust is established, we can begin to let God into our secret places. Those places we have bound up so tightly and hidden away so deeply that we dare not go back to them. But it is precisely these wounds that cause us the most pain and heartache. Though we suppress and attempt to ignore them, they continue to leak turmoil and pain. All too often we become angry and frustrated with ourselves, wondering why we simply cannot move past these annoying and painful wounds by ourselves. The reality is that it is our "self" that is the problem. We are too closely connected with the issue to be able to have the proper insight and be able to look at it objectively.
This is precisely why we must allow God to move into those areas and redeem them. He must meet us in those spaces and love us there. The Father so deeply wishes to tell us that he loves us regardless of those painful wounds. God's perfect love, a love that has no conditions or requirements, that demands no promise of reciprocity and is freely given, is the salve or antidote to our aching wound. We desperately need to hear him say, "My son/daughter, I see what ails you and I love you. This thing you've been holding onto, give it to me; you don't have to carry it anymore."
This is the beginning of freedom, this makes joy possible. This is also when we become more acutely aware of the molding and shaping of our self. We have made the choice to allow God in to dark places and have accepted his love and his will and now he is going to break us down, he is going to deconstruct us. It must be a deconstruction rather than a total destruction because God must take each piece of our self and work on it so that we feel his redemption at work. This is the relational way. If God simply dropped some spiritual dynamite on our self and blew it away and replaced it with something else we wouldn't have any say in the matter and the newness would be foreign. Whereas with the deconstruction God is taking what is already in place and bringing it before us and working on it with us. He redeems as we listen and learn.
It is in this breaking down that we must have faith that the final result will be beyond belief. It is in this process where we can find joy. As Nouwen said, this joy is not a trivial or persistent happiness but an enduring experience with God. This experience of joy will be different for everyone in its details but it is one of deep seeded comfort and security that God is with us and will not ever leave us. Though this breaking down process will bring pain and we will not like it and at times we may feel that we cannot bear it, God is right there sustaining us and encouraging us.
This is joy that we may experience the presence of God, the warmth of his love and the security of his strength. This is no mere happiness or earthly security; but it is knowing that the one who created the universe and its contents, who is sovereign over all time and space, who judges the good and the wicked fairly and unbiased, who burns with anger at injustice and wrong-doing, who at the same time loves completely and has compassion for the oppressed and powerless, chooses to be with you and with me. It is this knowledge that provides joy and it is this joy that gives us hope when storm and travail beset us. This hope that it will pass in time and a new light and promise come with the dawn.
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