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wings
Joyful
In the American Standard Version of the Bible, the word joy appears 164 times. 2 Samuel 6:12 reads, "And it was told King David, saying Jehovah hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertained unto him, because of the ark of God. And David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with joy."
In the book, "The Divine Conspiracy," Dallas Willard writes: Now, Jesus himself was and is a joyous, creative person. He does not allow us to continue thinking of our Father who fills and overflows space as a morose and miserable monarch, a frustrated and petty parent or a policeman on the prowl.
One cannot think of God in such ways while confronting Jesus' declaration, "He that has seen me has seen the Father." One of the most outstanding features of Jesus' personality was precisely an abundance of joy. This he left as an inheritance to his students, "that their joy might be full" (John 15:11). And they did not say, "Pass the aspirin," for he was well known to those around him as a happy man. It is deeply illuminating of kingdom living to understand that his steady happiness was not ruled out by his experience of sorrow and even grief.
I hope the people of the Holston Conference express joy to the people around them. In King David's case, his joy flowed because he comprehended that being in God's presence brings blessings. If we, like David, can acknowledge the blessings that flow to us without any merit or action on our parts, then we, too, should be found guilty of having like Jesus an abundance of joy.
If we are to reverse our membership decline, the spirit of depression, and hopelessness I have witnessed among us, we must begin to acknowledge that despite our past failings, God has not abandoned us. Henri Nouwen writes in "Here and Now":
I see mostly busy roads and ugly shopping malls; and if there are any waters to walk along they are mostly polluted. But as I keep saying: "The Lord is my shepherd ..." and allow God's shepherding love to enter more fully into my heart, I become more fully aware that the busy roads, the ugly malls, and the polluted waterways are not telling the true story of who I am. I do not belong to the powers and principalities that rule the world but to the Good Shepherd who knows His own and is known by His own. In the presence of my Lord and Shepherd there truly is nothing I shall want. He will, indeed, give me the rest my heart desires and pull me out of the dark pits of my depression.
Like Nouwen, we must place our hope in the Good Shepherd, in the face of our challenges, and when we recognize that "greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world" — and that we "are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus" — then it will be impossible for us to be depressed. Time and time again, we are told by Jesus in the scriptures to be "filled with joy."
Come on, Holston; let us emulate King David who was so filled with joy over the Ark of the Covenant. We have an even greater story about a good and wonderful Savior who gave his all for our salvation. Let's serve Jesus with JOY!
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Bishop James Swanson
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