“What happened to all your joy?” Galatians 4:15.
Lord Jesus… I can still hear my spiritual dad, Jack Miller, ask this question, and always with kindness in his eyes, “What happened to all your joy—the joy you had when you were a brand-new believer? When Jesus was more real and dear to you than anything and anyone? When grace was as essential as oxygen and water. When the Gospel was more precious than gold and silver. When Jesus’ love was riveting and life-giving, Where did your joy go?”
Jack would ask whole congregations, shame-filled Christians, self-righteous believers—fellow pastors, seminary professors, and missionaries alike. But Jesus, Jack was simply raising your question, for no one cares about our Gospel-joy more than you. So where do we lose our joy?
- Sometimes we starve our hearts of grace-nutrients. Busyness, success, doing more, getting more—the good-life pushes the grace-life to the back burner. By nature, we’re allergic to grace. By unglorified nature, we’re drawn to so many things that can’t give life.
- Sometimes we strangle our hearts with cords of unforgiveness, bitterness, and resentment—choking the life out of our joy.
- Sometimes we un-guard our hearts—throwing our spiritual life into cruise-control—forgetting we have an adversary who hates us and a heart that deceives us.
- Sometimes we sabotage our hearts—giving into temptation then letting the devil shame and condemn us.
- Sometimes we exhaust our hearts—the cost of loving others well, or doing more for you, than we spend time with you.
Sometimes we do nothing wrong, we have aging hearts and accelerating weaknesses. Our capacity to remember the Gospel gets compromised—and other physiological, emotional, mental changes occur. Jesus, whatever our scenario(s)—you are pursuing us, you love us, and you welcome us. Hallelujah… thank you… here we come. So Very Amen.
