If I were to ask, most people would not say one of their top fears is being too joyful.
If I were to tell you that I had kept something in for years because I thought that no one would be able to relate to it... you wouldn't be surprised.
If I told you one of my biggest fears for years had been becoming too joyful,
you might be perplexed.
What possible rationale would lie behind that fear?
People across the globe would pay for joy if it came by the bottle.
Yet, for years I put the cap on the potential I held for myself. I chose to listen to the diagnosis and labels attached to that diagnosis. I chose to view myself through a lens that did not define me.
You may or may not be able to relate to a limit placed on yourself through a diagnosis, but we all have them...
Limits. Restraints. Fears.
What's holding you back?
Who have you been listening to?
We have a choice. Everyday we make choices... choices to give up or fight... choices to stay silenced or sing... choices to complain and gossip or love...
Some of the most important choices we make, the choices that sway our whole being and ones that determine the other choices and outcomes, are the choices we make to listen to the truth or lies; to follow people who have our best interest in mind or to follow those who have knowledge but no heart to go with it. I wish life were as simple as it used to be in elementary school. You bring your enemy's favorite toy to school and share it and the world is a better place. Unfortunately, things grow complicated with time.
I used to be carefree. In high school I would go to those sleepovers where I would giggle all night with friends. I was a literal tree hugger at one point. I found it funny to hug trees in a park that had marks to be cut down. Those were times when I was learning. I was growing and being formed into a young woman that found late in her sophomore year that the world was quite a different place than she imagined.
All this goes to say, I used to be full of joy and no worries were attached to that joy.
Then, a fear developed over time. After experiencing some troubling times that earned a title, or diagnosis, I started to worry and wish that I never experienced joy again.
Don't get me wrong, I love life. I love my family and friends and of course I want to experience it to the fullest. I was simply afraid that I would get out of hand and not be able to control myself.
Years later... now... I have discovered that this fear was wrongly placed. Of course, the biggest extinguisher of strength, as I know it, would be to create a fear of the one thing that sustained me. It is quite true what the Bible claims: "... the joy of the Lord is your strength..." (Nehemiah).
If there is one thing that can sustain you throughout a fullblown tempest, it would be...
Joy.
Joy is different from happiness.
I am not referring to a high,
nor a fleeting feeling,
a giddiness,
nor a good time of laughter.
Joy is the rock that will stand the test of time.
It is the substance that kicks in when no one else can comprehend or hope for a positive outcome to a situation.
It is the fullness and abundance that defines life with Christ.
Of course it would be an object to be stolen.
I had a click moment last Sunday as my pastor spoke. She spoke on joy. She spoke about many things concerning joy, but the one thing that stood out was that the enemy did not want us joyful. It was the first time in my life that something like that clicked about my particular life and present situation. For so long I had been worrying and grobbling over what people would think of me.
Would they see me as a maniac?
Would they see me as too much?
Would I lose friends because I'm odd?
Would I do or say something that would cause me to forever lose a friend?
Would I ever get to the point where I would not be able to contain myself if I was happy?
So many times I would ask myself these questions. Then immediately I would respond.
I would rather be "crazy"... crazy passionate about the life I was living, than to hold it in and appear mediocre to the world.
My Jesus was not mediocre. In fact C.S. Lewis put it best:
"...He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to..."
Let's put it this way... Jesus did not come and live plainly. He did some things that were not expected and quite radical for any time.
When it comes down to it we have a choice, as long as we are breathing...
We can make the choice to live...
Or we can make the choice to live extraordinarily.
You decide.
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