Singing for Joy

Psalm 126:5 NKJV

The process may be difficult but the fruit of labor will produce songs of joy. Lord, thank You for giving us the ability to sing for joy!

Blindness from Self Pity

[S] Hosea 7:14 --
14 They do not cry out to me from their hearts but wail on their beds.
They slash themselves, appealing to their gods for grain and new wine, but they turn away from me.

[O] When (not if) we fall short we are saddened and tend to bring some comfort through self pity as well as to find a greater authority to seek help (or grumble against).  What's done is done and life must move on but being too deeply engaged in self pity will blind my soul to just keep wailing and not cry out to our God of this universe subsequently turning to other idols of this world grasping for some comfort and hope.

[A] There is a significant difference between being remorseful and being repentant before God for my own failures and shortcomings.  The former will be like drinking sea water because it will only dry me up more while the latter where I'd be like drinking from a fresh wellspring of water to quench the dryness of my soul.  As I face many (more) mistakes of my life, I must cry out to God for His extension of grace as mentioned in  Hosea 6:6 (NIV).

[P] Dear God of this universe, I want to turn to You especially during the times of my failures.  May my heart be lifted up by Your saving grace every time I turn to You and may my cry turn into joy of Your great salvation.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

Trees Clap Their Hands

[S] Isaiah 55:12 --
12 "For you will go out with joy
And be led forth with peace;
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

[O] Joy is one of the mysterious formula God integrated into our lives because as much as I have two eyes and a nose the joy is a real part of our lives not an optional ornament that we put on whenever we want to.  God put this in our lives for Him to enjoy watching us filled with joy.  He even made plan B in case we don't exercise this gift by letting the mountains and the hills shout joy, and the trees clap their hands.  In fact, if you look around at the nature, I can see how the trees raise their hands upward toward the sky and clap their hands (branches and leaves).

[A] If the trees can express joyfulness to God, I should certainly be joyful at will, not conditional to my circumstances.  I need to mix expressing my joy to God in my daily routine.  Just like how the mountains, hills, and the trees do this through their built-in nature, I would like to make this a part of my nature.

[P] Dear Father, take joy, right now through my life.  I give You the glory and commit my life to make You joyful by watching my life every day.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

Rejoicing at God Speed

[S] 2 Chronicles 29:36; 30:12 --
36  Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over what God had prepared for the people, because the thing came about suddenly.
12  The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded by the word of the Lord. 

[O] There are two significant outcomes when God is on the move with His people:  People rejoice, and it happens at God speed.  In Genesis we see that God created this whole world in six days and it was Good to Him (rejoicing) and Adam rejoiced with Eve.  When God moved through His people using Hezekiah as an instrument, all the people rejoiced especially because he came about suddenly.  Also we see in 30:12 how God united the people's hearts in unity to follow the leaders' guidance.  There is a lot to be said about how God uses united hearts to further our efforts at God speed.

[A] As I'm involved with church leadership and administration to "manage" the growth of our ministry, I can very easily fall into administrative mode of gathering information to make better decisions whereas what God desires is to unite people's hearts so that God can reveal His awesome speed of carrying out His purpose through our congregation who will rejoice over what God is doing in the midst of us.

[P] Dear Father, please guard my heart such that I will not fall into the trap of "running" programs at my church but to dig deeper into Your word in order for me to encourage and guide people's hearts towards what You are doing in the midst of us.  May Your presence bring out the shouts of joy in us.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

Power of: But As For Me

[S] Psalm 59:16-17 --
16 But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength;
Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning,
For You have been my stronghold
And a refuge in the day of my distress.
17 O my strength, I will sing praises to You;
For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness.

[O] The word, "But" jumped out tremendously because it contrasted before and after that word.  What comes after it is filled with power, confidence, joy, and refreshing spirit.  This is what I needed to hear because I feel like I'm buried in the stuff I need to take care but as I think about it, there is comparison with someone who's life is in total danger.  And yet, he is singing about this strength in him.

[A] Stop the violin and start singing with joy from the bottom of my heart.  Make it simple and start doing some praise songs with my guitar.

[P] Dear Father, may my heart be lifted up to You with joyful singing which defies the pull from all the tasks in front of me.  May I rest in You and You alone.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

Picking Up My Left-over Joy

[S] Mark 8:8 --
And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces.

[O] The key operand here was "satisfied."  Not only the impossibility of feeding 4,000 men with just seven loaves of bread and a few fish, they were fed to their satisfaction; and then some left overs on top of that.  The principle I see here is God will not only feed me but feed to my satisfaction despite what the circumstance or the amount of resources may be.  The question is am I satisfied with His feeding or am I always hungrier for something more or something else besides what God provides for me?  Satisfaction is subjective with respect to my own desires and so no matter what God provides for me, if my desire is somewhere else, then I will never be satisfied.  One of the indicator of unsatisfied life is there is no surplus, or left over, of joy.

[A] Is my walk with God a satisfying one such that the joy in my life will overflow out?  Lately it's been more on the dry side and this passage has turned around my perspective so I will live out my life picking up the left over crumbs of joy.

[P] Dear Father, fill me with Your joy so much that it will just overflow out of my life.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

Love-founded Waiting

[S] Genesis 29:20 --
 ²⁰So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.

[O] I just love reading this story because it paints a beautiful picture of the power of love.  The not-so-short seven years can seem like just a few days when Jacob was waiting to marry Rachel whom he dearly loved.  Switching gears a bit when my love for Jesus becomes the foundation for my participating in His ministry, instead of feeling burdened and drawn out, all should seem like a blip because I do it out of my deepest love for Him.  In many ways, my perspective changes when my heart is in love with Jesus.  Otherwise, all will seem like chore and no chore is delightful to take on by default.

[A] The small group ministry under way is challenging and at times I feel like it's not going anywhere.  I realized based on this passage that such a perspective is due to my lack of love for Jesus.  I need to be careful about falling into the ritualistic aspects of ministry rather than centered around the motivation of why I am in His ministry to begin with.  Whenever I feel like it's going so slow, I should re-examine my love for Jesus.

[P] Dear Father, Jacob's love for Rachel is a such a great example for me to follow when I serve You because Your ministry is not just a simple walk in the park.  It will demand some serious challenges at times and I need to keep my position, and doing that will require me to based it on my love for You.  Let my love never run dry.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

It Came Suddenly

[S] 2 Chronicles 29:36 --
 ³⁶Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over what God had prepared for the people, because the thing came about suddenly.

[O] King Hezekiah cleaned up the House of Judah by getting rid of the idols and consecrating all the priests.  He returned the Israelite's heart back towards God and in some sense simply by initiating that great things begin to happen in the midst of the Jewish people.  The transformation did not take place by applying some phenomenal management strategy but by going back to the basic posture of the people of God.  What caught my attention from this verse is the part about how people rejoiced because the things of God came about suddenly.  The people were surprised about how God showered His blessings to them so quickly.  Again, the people weren't trying to find joy but to align themselves right with God and the joyfulness came as a result of that.

[A] Whenever I am lacking joy, it is so easy for me to work on finding that lost joy as how I would search for a misplaced item.  I would work so hard by making some strategy of my own to restore what's lost.  And at first this would seem like the right path to take however based on my experiences this would lead to tiredness and then after making some progress I would plateau out.  Instead of trying to replace that lost joy, I must first align my own heart back to God and consecrate all the areas of my life.

[P] Dear God, I want to experience your sudden workings of the wonderful blessings because I've cleaned out the junks in my life so I may consecrate myself to God.  Please show Your grace and mercy in my and my family members' lives.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

What Are You Trusting Now?

[S] Jeremiah 17:4-10; John 16:22 --
⁴And you will, even of yourself, let go of your inheritance
That I gave you;
And I will make you serve your enemies
In the land which you do not know;
For you have kindled a fire in My anger
Which will burn forever.
⁵Thus says the LORD,
"Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the LORD.
⁶"For he will be like a bush in the desert
And will not see when prosperity comes,
But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,
A land of salt without inhabitant.
⁷"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD
And whose trust is the LORD.
⁸"For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
That extends its roots by a stream
And will not fear when the heat comes;
But its leaves will be green,
And it will not be anxious in a year of drought
Nor cease to yield fruit.
⁹"The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?
¹⁰"I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give to each man according to his ways,
According to the results of his deeds.
²²"Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.

[O] Verse 5 mentions cause of God's wrath/curse which is to trust in mankind and strength in flesh. When we turn away from God, we are asking for His wrath not necessarily because God showers down firestones from heaven but because we choose to live like the bush in the desert further away from the source of life. Have you seen a driver driving further away from the gas station into the deserted land when the car is about to run out gas? That would seem stupid and asking for trouble. That's what we are like when we turn away from God, who gives life to us, when we are running out of joy in life. We think we can generate this on our own but that's where we fall deep into the trap of the enemy because there is no way we will do that. In fact, it'll be more like falling deeper into the quicksand further immobilizing oneself. On the contrary (verses 7-8), trusting God is the way to tap into the source of life and joy. It's almost like watering the plant make it grow. Have you ever wondered how that works? How does the clear water generate this green plant, eventually blossoming into beautiful and colorful flowers? We can go into the analysis of how the soil has all the necessary nutrients and it gets soaked up by the root, etc. but all I want to observe now is that the same "magic" happens when we trust in the Lord (like watering the plant), the necessary spiritual nutrients around me gets soaked up by my spirit and then voila the joy happens in my life. And as John 16:22 says, that joy is here to stay.

[A] Instead of trying to generate the strength in my life on my own, trust God in all I do and think. That will please Him and He will provide the joy in my life. Don't seek joy from an external source but find it by trusting God first. Especially as we're about to start our first small group leaders training, I want to especially trust God and wait for His joy to fill us up.

[P] Dear God, here I am before You. I fully desire to trust You in the leadership of our small group ministry. I have surrendered to make it a successful one because the success comes from trusting You and that's where I along with other leaders want to start from. Please move us mightily with Your Holy Spirit starting tomorrow morning. I trust Your Holy name. Amen.

The Choir of Nature

[S] Psalm 98:1a, 7-8 --
¹O sing to the LORD a new song,
For He has done wonderful things,
⁷Let the sea roar and all it contains,
The world and those who dwell in it.
⁸Let the rivers clap their hands,
Let the mountains sing together for joy

[O] If I listen carefully enough I will notice that the nature really sings out loud according to their creation. The sea roars, the rivers clap their hands, and the mountains sing for joy. How am I doing with my part in this global singing? I guess I need to always remember how I am created and how I am designed to sing such that I may join in the orchestra of this wonderful nature. What would it look like for rivers to sing like the sea roaring and vice versa? It would be weird, huh? That may be what's happening whenever I grumble or downcast instead of being happy and smiling because what God had done for me regardless of my circumstances. I want to join in on the choir of the nature.

[A] God's designed me to sing by praising God with my heart. This may manifest in smiling, raising hands to the sky, sacrificing to help others. What I need to watch out for is not to get caught up too much in my own tunes of selfishness and pride.

[P] Dear God, thank You for putting the desire to sing for You deep inside my soul. May I not hinder that singing with my own consciensness. I want to let go of myself to sing with rest of the world to You for what You had done for us. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Night and Morning Difference

[S] Psalm 30:5, 11, 12 --

For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

[O] As I'm reading this passage enroute to San Diego to attend my dear friend's parents' funeral service God seemed to be comforting me in order to pass it on to my friend; not necessarily by reciting these verses but by showering the heart of God rendered in them through my presence. The mourning and weeping will last the night but the shout of joy will come in the new morning because of God's grace and mercy. Dancing singing praises will take place as the focus shifts from the loss of the beloved parents to the gratefulness of God in our lives for those living for His glory. This obviously is much easier said then done ... but encouraged by the author of this psalm that this is God's promise to us and can take courage to step forward in this path.

[A] Today in my participation at the funeral and burial services to carry this spirit for them for the unspoken message of God's abundant gracious care to embrace the mourning family members.

[P] Dear God, may Your wonderful Spirit of healing and hope be hoverong over the gathering today. Thank You for paving the path through Jesus Christ so we may escape from the sorrows of this world into Your eternal Joy. In His name. Amen.