Thoughts from Pastor Dave

ARCHIVES
June 2005 article
July 2005 article
August 2005 article
September 2005 article
October 2005 article
November 2005 article
December 2005 article
January 2006 article
February 2006 article
March 2006 article
April 2006 article
May 2006 article
August 2006 article

This article originally appeared in the November 2006 Gold Canyon Lifestyle

Jesus' Question

If you're happy and you know it tell your face! This is a call to miserable people. Specifically, to those who call Jesus Lord and still are grumpy, cranky complainers. At its root, crankiness is simply disobedience. We are called to rejoice in all circumstances and to be thankful all the time, not just on Thanksgiving Day. If we are not thankful we are disobeying a command. If we are not thankful, there is no way we can experience joy. Thankfulness is the soil where joy thrives.

We know from the Bible that joy is not fleeting. You either have it or you don't. So the question is: why don't you have it? All the time? No matter what? Hopefully if you don't experience the kind of joy that Jesus talked about: the joy that never goes away (John 16:22) and the kind of joy that is constant (Philippians 4:4), then you begin to wonder why. You ask: what do I need in my life in order for me to have joy? What must I have? What circumstance in my life needs to be altered? What person in my life needs to change in order for me to have joy?

If your joy and thankful heart is contingent on a person changing or a circumstance falling in line then you have just identified your source of joy. You are on the right track! However, if a person must change or a situation altered in order for you to have joy: you will never really have joy! So what do you do?

Some people fake it. They put on a mask and pretend to be something they are not. The problem with doing this over the long haul is that it is exhausting. Eventually these people admit they can't do it anymore. People who fake it and want to give up the lie are at a good crossroads. If they admit that they can't and confess their brokenness and admit they are weary and cry out to our Lord - they are at the best possible place they can be. Jesus promised help to the weary and blessings to the broken. Kingdom riches are poured out to those who "can't"! However, at this crossroads in our culture the "giving up" means you give up the joyless marriage, sapping the joy from the children involved, or do something else just as reckless. People who give up this way try to find joy in the ways of the world. Through the numbing effects of some drug or some other life and eventually they discover, again, that they never really had true joy.

Others don't fake it but instead flaunt it. They are cranky and they don't care. They complain about everything and everyone. They blame and push guilt and try to bring everyone down to their joyless gutter. Thankfulness is far from their heart. The downward spiral of self-centeredness is easily spotted because the self-absorbed dwell on minor issues. Small things become huge things. Your thankful heart is all about YOU. The key for these people is to get over themselves or joy will never come.

So what do you do? When you begin wondering why you don't have it and what you need in order to have it leading you to identify what you need in order to have it - stop right there! If your source of joy is anything or anyone else other than Jesus - change your source of joy! Get outside of yourself, serve someone else in the name of Jesus and start giving like God gives.

You cannot hang around with God very long before you start adoring Him and seeing Him for all He is. He is real and He is a Giver (Hebrews 11:6). When you concentrate on Him and spend time with Him and start becoming like Him, you begin to give like He does. You lose yourself in a life of giving and service and ministry and you end up finding life, and joy and you find yourself being thankful.