Choose Joy

It just occurred to me that this is the third
time I've tattooed the word "joy" on myself.
Time to start listening.

In the first week of the New Year of 2017, I wrote a post about a word God had sunk into my heart...about accepting who I am and embracing God’s truth of being fearfully and wonderfully made. I ended that post saying 2017 was going to bring so many good things. There were good things, but overall, it turned out to be a really tough year personally. It wasn’t an easy process, allowing God to bring to the surface truths about myself; facing those truths; knowing this process was necessary to lead me to true knowledge of what it means to be fearfully and wonderfully made; and finding out that He really means for me to live in it. And that was just the emotional and spiritual inside - not including the stress of family, school, work and the things on behalf of family and friends who had some tough times hit in 2017. Even for all the hardness of it, I have to say 2017 was a good year in the end because every word, step, event, circumstance, pain, happiness, etc., that draws us closer to Christ is worth more than we can realize in this lifetime.

And as for 2018? I really wasn’t sure what to think or expect from God for 2018 until the last couple weeks, as the time and thought consuming college semester came to an end and grades rolled in. I worked so hard this past semester. In one class in particular I invested sweat and tears, sacrificed time and activities, and produced what is probably my best PhD work yet. I hit most of the major elements of scholarly research and writing - some that I hadn’t done before and others I hadn’t done well before. I improved as the semester went on and even decided on my dissertation topic based on the topic of this class and specifically the writing of this final paper that drove me crazy. Although I had started the class honestly unsure how I'd do, I ended it with actual hopes that I'd pulled off an A as I have in all of my classes so far.

My final paper grade: B

My final grade for the class: 89.3% B+ 

Note: The professor rounds to an A- at an 89.5%

My second class of the semester, which admittedly received less of my effort in my attempts to give all I had to the other, ended with a final paper grade of A- and final class grade of an A. I know, it may be hard to relate to this on the level of school or academics, but think of it this way: have you ever given something all you have, put every effort and resource into it, and still come out feeling like you didn’t do enough? The class I gave my all to failed to meet the goal, while the one I didn’t give that same effort, met the goal easily. It’s beyond frustrating. The compounded feelings of frustration, disappointment, and anger began to sink my week and all the accomplishments that went into making that 89.3% B+ happen. 

After a couple days passed and some of the emotion faded, during lunch one day the thought came to me, “Choose joy.” In this moment, you can choose to mourn something you can’t change and allow it to become bitter or you can choose to see the good in the experience and allow it to make you better. Bitter or better. I went back and reread the professor’s email comments for my presentation and paper. His presentation comments were nothing but praise for how I’d chosen a relevant topic, set up the research and scholarship, employed good examples, and concluded with an impressive twist - stating my work was worthy of PhD level. His paper comments were all constructive criticisms that will do nothing but benefit me in my writing, if I heed them. A second email response he sent told me, “You can do this....you just need to do it consistently.”

In my focus on the letter grade itself, I had blinded myself to the fact that a professor who has the absolute highest of expectations praised my work and told me that I have what it takes to earn a PhD. And I seemed to ignore the fact that he gave me what I need to improve - if I’d just work on the things he pointed out. In the end, those things matter more for moving ahead in skillful writing than a letter grade. What good is a letter grade if my skills never sharpen enough for my writing to be accepted in a dissertation or publications? I'll have the A, but I won't earn the degree.

Isn’t this how we tend to go? We focus in on one thing about our situation and react negatively because our one thing hasn’t gone right or isn't what we expected. Often, it becomes a prolonged reaction on our part. Sometimes our focus makes it worse than it actually is and, even if the situation really is bad enough on its own, we often drag out our reaction longer than needed, not allowing ourselves to make the shift needed to recover. All the while we stand blinded to the fact that we've been given what we need in the moment, if we'll let God use it to sharpen us. Don't misunderstand me, this world gives us plenty to react to and allowing feelings of general disappointment, sadness, mourning, etc., are healthy, but we can't live there. Living there dampens and eventually snuffs out the goodness of life God has given, namely Himself. If we’d refocus we’d recall God’s promise to work all things to our good, see all He’s given us to move forward with, and choose to allow that joy to come alongside our grief.

JOY - second only to Love as a fruit of the Spirit

I'm not talking about happiness, which comes and goes with feelings and circumstances. Joy cannot be defeated or replaced by anything else, unless we allow it. Joy sits within us in hard times and buoys our spirits as much as it does when all is right with the world. Joy is an essence - a fruit - of the Holy Spirit (Galations 5:22-23). Where the Spirit of Lord is, there are a number of things, but one of them is joy. The end of Nehemiah 8:10 says, "...the joy of the Lord is your strength!” Do you have Jesus? Then you have the reason and strength for joy!

"When we lay the soil of our hard lives
open to the rain of grace and let joy
penetrate our cracked and dry places,
let joy soak into our broken skin and
deep crevices, life grows. How can
this not be the best thing in the world?
For us?" Ann Voskamp

I know - that's all well and good for something small like grades, right? In deeper, emotionally charged, and/or more personal matters this concept proves more difficult, but just as all encompassing. James 1:2-4 says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." It says a lot about God's grace that He starts the lesson small before applying it to the gaping wound you assume (or pretend) has healed. A couple days after I started thinking "choose joy," a centerpiece of my past came before me...a centerpiece because I've made it so. The past year God has shown me that I reference who I am and what I'm worth by major failures in my past. I've been living off of mistakes God forgave and redeemed right before my eyes over the past twenty years. And now I know I can't ignore this any longer...when confronted with any of it, I must choose joy. It is in choosing joy - and His strength that lies behind it - that I give ultimate praise to God and persevere. It is in this perseverance that I will ultimately see my heart transformed. 

A hard road? Yes, but as my pastor/mentor/friend Christian told me, "The Lord is always more concerned with the PROCESS than the PAYOFF, because in the process we become more like Him. The payoff is a promise, but it is what happens to us in the process and how we use it as an opportunity to minister to others and bless the Lord that truly is an offering of love to Him." Are you in a process of some sort? Maybe you've been there awhile or maybe it's just begun. Either way, it's never too late to persevere. To choose joy.

In this New Year, let the thoughts we seem to reserve for Christmas stay with us. God gave the greatest gift of all: His only Son, Jesus. We speak that line in this season often, but do we know what that entails? If we have nothing else, we have Jesus. He alone is reason enough to choose joy. The only question is, will we do it? When the tough moments hit, will we stop - lift our eyes, hands, and hearts in a prayer of supplication - and choose joy? Because ultimately, choosing joy is choosing Jesus.