Along the way I was challenged to consider my future in the way I live my present. I was prompted to ask some big questions about the society I find myself a part of and how we ended up in this current mess. I pondered how you even begin to bring Jesus to someone whose wounds run "as deep as the ocean", without becoming incredibly trite.
I was made uncomfortable by the huge difference in the actions ascribed to God (everything from mangling like a bear to showing unfailing love and compassion) and totally shamed by the massive faith shown by Jeremiah despite what was going on around him and inside him.
But the thought I'm left with as I move on to new pastures is about joy.
Joy is gone from our hearts;
Our dancing has turned to mourning
(Lamentations 5:15)
When I first read this, I started thinking quite deeply about the concept of joy. I thought about how the Bible often tells us to be joyful all the time. And then I thought about how that's simply not possible, because we all face situations and go through circumstances where we simply aren't joyful - like the Israelites did. So then I wondered whether actually I don't understand joy; whether "biblical joy" is different from my everyday definition. And further and further I went down a rabbit hole of confusion...
(It may help you to know that a couple of years back, I did one of those personality inventories, this one was called Birkman. Now whatever you think about those tests, or about Birkman in particular, I found it really helpful in a number of ways. One of those ways was that it highlighted that day to day I prefer to work with shades of grey as opposed to black and white. That's fine, and actually I already knew that. However, it also showed that my underlying need is to be able to boil things down into black and white - which I didn't really know before, but makes sense when I think about it. And the killer is that when I can't do this, I tend to try to cope by over-complicating things and making them more confusing. So basically, if I can't get my head around something quickly and easily, I assume that it must be the most complicated thing on the planet and I treat it as such, going round and round in circles until nothing makes sense any more...)
So I was getting myself in a right old pickle over the concept of joy. Only I didn't realise it. I thought I was being all cerebral and intelligent and deep (because those are so the three words my friends would use to describe me).
A few days later, I went for coffee with a friend and I decided to display my newfound profound thoughts with her. This particular friend has some mental health issues, and also has a pretty direct line to what God is thinking at certain moments. So she was politely listening as I waffled and confused myself and bored us both with my topsy-turvy thoughts about joy, when suddenly she looked straight at me (or perhaps straight into me) and said "You've got joy in you though Em." I was gobsmacked. "Yeah", she continued, "Even when you're stressed out and stuff, there's still joy in you."
Oh.
So there it was. And still is. The point of joy, as with so much I experience in my faith journey, is not to pick it to pieces and look at it from all angles and try to understand it, as though by understanding it, I will somehow be able to obtain it. The point is to open up my hands and accept it from the Father who loves me. It doesn't matter if I get it, it matters if I've got it.
And I think I might.
Joy is gone from our hearts;
Our dancing has turned to mourning
(Lamentations 5:15)
When I first read this, I started thinking quite deeply about the concept of joy. I thought about how the Bible often tells us to be joyful all the time. And then I thought about how that's simply not possible, because we all face situations and go through circumstances where we simply aren't joyful - like the Israelites did. So then I wondered whether actually I don't understand joy; whether "biblical joy" is different from my everyday definition. And further and further I went down a rabbit hole of confusion...
(It may help you to know that a couple of years back, I did one of those personality inventories, this one was called Birkman. Now whatever you think about those tests, or about Birkman in particular, I found it really helpful in a number of ways. One of those ways was that it highlighted that day to day I prefer to work with shades of grey as opposed to black and white. That's fine, and actually I already knew that. However, it also showed that my underlying need is to be able to boil things down into black and white - which I didn't really know before, but makes sense when I think about it. And the killer is that when I can't do this, I tend to try to cope by over-complicating things and making them more confusing. So basically, if I can't get my head around something quickly and easily, I assume that it must be the most complicated thing on the planet and I treat it as such, going round and round in circles until nothing makes sense any more...)
So I was getting myself in a right old pickle over the concept of joy. Only I didn't realise it. I thought I was being all cerebral and intelligent and deep (because those are so the three words my friends would use to describe me).
A few days later, I went for coffee with a friend and I decided to display my newfound profound thoughts with her. This particular friend has some mental health issues, and also has a pretty direct line to what God is thinking at certain moments. So she was politely listening as I waffled and confused myself and bored us both with my topsy-turvy thoughts about joy, when suddenly she looked straight at me (or perhaps straight into me) and said "You've got joy in you though Em." I was gobsmacked. "Yeah", she continued, "Even when you're stressed out and stuff, there's still joy in you."
Oh.
So there it was. And still is. The point of joy, as with so much I experience in my faith journey, is not to pick it to pieces and look at it from all angles and try to understand it, as though by understanding it, I will somehow be able to obtain it. The point is to open up my hands and accept it from the Father who loves me. It doesn't matter if I get it, it matters if I've got it.
And I think I might.
