joy
We all live with the illusion that joy will come someday when conditions change. We go to school & think we will be happy when we graduate. We are single & are convinced we will be happy when we get married. We get married & decide we will be happy when we have children…and so on. “This is God’s day,” the psalmist says. It is the day God made, a day that Christ’s death has redeemed. If we are going to know joy, it must be in this day—today” [john ortberg]
every day, i pass a poster in my hallway that says: you will only be in this season of life once, embrace it. and i love that reminder. i need it, actually. tattooed on my face or something. it’s easy to live for tomorrow. it’s really easy to convince ourselves that we will be happier when this happens, that we will be able to live out God’s plan when we are at this point. it’s easy to use tomorrow as a justification to not live for today. i’ve been struggling lately with the idea of joy. and how it goes hand-in-hand with living a life of purpose. right? and these two complex ideas….somehow they are to be woven into our every day lives. not into our tomorrows, not into our next years’. today. i’ve been struggling to find joy in the everyday. joy in routine. i feel like i can easily fall into a routine of numbness. chapel, classes, meals, writing. sometimes, i feel like i’m still waiting for life to really start. newsflash: it did 18 years ago. one of my favorite authors, ann voskamp, has something beautiful to say about this: the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is. do i believe that i can find God in my classes? do i believe that i can encounter him while i’m riding the trolley? or doing my laundry? hypothetically, yes. in actuality? i’m still seeking him for the future. but…what if i learned to seek him in the everyday? in the nothingness? we are only in this season of life once. i’m in THIS season of life for a reason. and i don’t want to miss out on finding what that reason is. our season of life—whatever it is—is no barrier to having christ formed in us. not in the least. [ortberg]. life counts—every bit of it. and every moment we are given is an opportunity to live in the plans that god has for us. even in the nothing, even in the everyday. if we are going to know joy, it must be in this day—today.
