CHOOSE JOY
I made a very calculated choice at the end of February that I would take the months of March and April to study JOY, in all seven of my weekly Bible Studies.
WHY? Because I desperately needed to...
Restore JOY to my life…
To find new, fresh JOY every day
To look for it with everything I had at my disposal
I needed to make a conscious effort To CHOOSE JOY
Right now, for me, it’s about the JOY of the LORD.
You know God always gets my attention and, more often than not, teaches me something valuable...if I’m paying enough attention to what’s going on around me!
So recently, for numerous reasons, I decided to quit putting off something I needed to have done...cataract surgery, in both eyes.
Well, as soon as I made that decision, and even before I had my consultation with the eye doctor, I started researching cataract removal.
I was amazed, and NOT the least bit surprised, that there was a tremendous spiritual lesson right before my foggy eyes...just waiting for me to catch up with it!
It was a lesson that I needed to pay attention to in the worst kind of way!
This is how the MAYO Clinic describes the simple surgery…
During the procedure
During cataract surgery, the clouded lens is removed, and a clear artificial lens is usually implanted.
Using an ultrasound probe to break up the lens for removal.
During a procedure called phacoemulsification (fak-o-e-mul-sih-fih-KAY-shun), your surgeon makes a tiny incision in the front of your eye (cornea) and inserts a needle-thin probe into the lens substance where the cataract has formed.
Your surgeon then uses the probe, which transmits ultrasound waves,
to break up (emulsify) the cataract and suction out the fragments.
The very back of your lens (the lens capsule) is left intact to serve as a place for the artificial lens to rest.
Stitches may be used to close the tiny incision in your cornea at the completion of the procedure.
Once the cataract has been removed the artificial lens is implanted into the empty lens capsule.
So, the lesson?
Well, over the course of the last year, I think my spiritual vision became so cloudy that I began to expect calamity every day and at every turn.
I made statements like...
“I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“I just can’t seem to catch a break.”
Because it seemed like “if it could go wrong it would.” PERIOD!
Words like…
Overwhelmed
Exhausted
Anxious
Discouraged
Traumatized
Done in!
Overload
Compassion fatigue
...became a part of my almost everyday vocabulary.
There were days I didn’t know what to do, spiritually, physically, relationally, emotionally, financially, psychologically.
I felt like I was getting hit in every area of my life.
Hanging on to JESUS by the thread of His garment became my go-to posture.
And then… I read about cataract surgery and realized my lenses were,
not just old and cloudy
and downright foggy,
they were distorted and damaged!
Yes, they were!
I needed God to perform some spiritual surgery that would break up old, cloudy, foggy and distorted lenses and replace them with...
Ones that could stay focused on Jesus, not everything going on around and about me.
Ones that could see beyond the temporal to the eternal.
Ones that had a Christ-centered focus, not a Debby-centered focus.
I needed...
new,
healthy,
clear,
God designed lenses and the sooner the better!
I recently watched a heartbreaking movie one Sunday afternoon.
It was about a French Jewish family that was rounded up in Paris and sent to concentration camps.
The most heartbreaking part was that the young daughter of the family hid her little brother in a concealed closet telling him not to move, not realizing that they would not be returning...until she was able to escape many days later.
When she got to her brother, he was of course, already dead…
From there the movie follows her heartbreaking journey in which she never gets over what happened to her parents and her brother.
As I considered her plight and then of course I always go back to what I call the "Apostles Paul’s Litany of Horrors" in a life filled with struggle.
Well, my stuff didn’t look so bad after all.
At the same time, I cannot and it is not healthy to MINIMIZE the struggles, grief and painful isolation we have experienced for well over a year now.
But again...
I needed...
new,
healthy,
clear,
God designed lenses and the sooner the better!
Like what Paul had when he said,
We are…
hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.
While Paul was quick to recognize
the magnitude of his struggles,
the difficulties he endured day after day
the suffering in so many areas of his life
He minimizes nothing, but his clear vision gave him profound truths!
Paul had the “but nots” to help him keep things in perspective.
To help him see more clearly.
YES, this happened, but STILL!
Clear spiritual vision reminds us that…
God is faithful
God keeps His promises
God is close to the brokenhearted
God knows my pain, my anguish, my struggle
He will never abandon me
Knowing those truths first hand Paul was able to say...
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited,
I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
9 But he said to me,
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
10 That is why, for Christ’s sake,
I delight…
in weaknesses,
in insults,
in hardships,
in persecutions,
in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
To delight in something is surely to choose JOY in all circumstances.
Paul is saying… for Christ’s sake, I will find joy as...
I delight…
in weaknesses,
in insults,
in hardships,
in persecutions,
in difficulties.
THAT is the attitude I want to have.
Finding JOY in every situation for the sake of Christ!
With clearer God-centered, healthy vision...
I choose Joy!
