What Joy!
“What Joy!” A few summers ago I couldn’t get this phrase out of my head. One morning I woke up early before everyone else which is a miracle in my home and there that phrase was again like a song, What Joy! It came during a season where I was internally struggling with a feeling of insignificance, an inner worry that maybe I wasn’t enough that maybe I should be doing more to help change the world. That guilt feeling of “I should be changing the world” is a heavy one so this “what joy” phrase didn’t seem to fit where my mind and emotions were. I had to find out where it came from.
“Oh, What joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!
Yes, What Joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!” Psalms 32:1-2 and Quoted in Romans 4.
In Romans 4 we are told that Abraham discovered that being made right with God did not come from good deeds but from believing God. The passage continues by saying that if we work we get a wage not a gift, but people are credited righteous not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives. David is quoted here because He is describing the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it.
Oh, What joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven. God’s promise to Abraham was not based on obedience to the law but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. “He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever He promises” Rom. 4:21 Abraham believed God gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were (Rom 4:17) Am I righteous? No I have done and said things I wish I hadn’t, and I wish I could say that I have done more good then I have, yet God calls me righteous.
I don’t know if you’ve literally been wearing the weight of the world or maybe just the weight of guilt from something you did or didn’t do but the good news is we are completely cleared of guilt. Beyond that we can live in complete honesty before God; we don’t have to hide in shame the way Adam and Eve did after eating the forbidden fruit because our sin has been put out of sight. We are fully forgiven for everything we have done and for the things we haven’t. So when I find myself regretting speaking in frustration or not acting on the nudge to encourage or give, I can go honestly before God and talk it out with Him.
“What joy” in Psalms 32 begins the first 2 verses in a full chapter reflecting on God’s forgiveness and joy of walking in relationship with Him. Another area of my life I feel a lot of anxiety over is what direction to go and what decisions to make. If I were being honest, I’m afraid of making a wrong choice, scared that I will miss out on what’s best. Often this fear of making a mistake just keeps me paralyzed from making any decision at all. Look a little further into chapter 32 and you find, “The Lord says, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you…unfailing love surrounds those who trusts in the Lord”
The theme of all of these verses is that my part is trust, faith, believe and God does all the rest. That is freedom. That is joy. If I can rest in the truth that my significance and my enough-ness are from God alone apart from my works then I too can sigh a breath of relief and proclaim, “Oh What Joy”!
2016/02/05 at 2:51 pm