shadow

joy

The Funniest Christmas ever

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…”behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”

Luke 2:10

“Sing to The Lord, for He has done glorious things.”…

Isaiah 12:5

“Make a joyful noise unto God…”

Psalm 66:1

I am from a small town in the state of Mississippi. I have a big family and when we get together we are very noisy and we have a big time. My husband, Michael, is from a big city in the state of Illinois. His family is small and their gatherings are quiet but eloquent. Both are wonderful but very different.

The funniest Christmas I ever had was the first Christmas Michael spent with my family. We all gathered at my brother’s house on Christmas Eve, and the party was on. We cooked, played games, and dodged kids that were running all over the place. We talked and laughed until the wee hours of the morning. Try to picture this. My Mom has six children, all with “A” personalities.  When we get together it becomes a competition to see who can talk the most and the loudest, and we absolutely love it.

The next morning we gathered around the Christmas tree to open our gifts. My Mom has a farming back ground. My Grandparents were sharecroppers. So, naturally, she enjoyed all things country. One of her gifts was a decorative straw hat to hang on the wall. Another gift for her was an old butter churn, also for decoration. Well, being the gracious lady she was, she took the hat, put it on her head, grabed the butter churn, and started pounding away, singing, “coming butter come, come butter come”.

Everyone in the room burst into laughter, but we were not laughing at her. We were laughing at Michael. My poor sweet man, the city slicker, was sitting in a chair with a look on his face that was priceless. He looked as if he just realized that his life would never be the same again.

Of course, Michael became close to Mom and enjoyed her company, but we still laugh at the story of his first Christmas with us.

Christmas is and should be a time of “great joy”. God sent His Son to us as a baby born in a manger because He loves us. He wants us to know Him through His Son, Jesus.

With that in your hearts and minds this Christmas, make a “joyful noise unto The Lord” with your laughter, your boisterous conversations with friends and family, and your praises to Him for the many “glorious things” He has done for us

Merry Christmas and blessings to you all.

Janice

The Desires of Our Heart: Delight Yourself in the Lord

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“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Psalm 37:3-4 seems a little short and simple to study for a full week, but the longer I sit with these two verses, the more I’m finding new troves of treasure in each of them. Truthfully, I find myself focusing on that last part – the Lord giving me the desires of my heart – with much more excitement and passion than I feel in the instructions before those words. I spend so much time chasing a calling or a desire of my heart, that I forget the instructions he has so beautifully laid out before me: Trust in Me. Do good. Dwell in the land. Befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in Me. 

I’d love to spend this week together turning our attention to those things and seeing how the Lord transforms and grants us the desires of our hearts when we put things in their right order.

 

Delight Yourself in the Lord

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

FridayMany times in life I’ve gotten this verse backwards. I’ve believed that getting the desires of my heart would cause me to delight in the Lord. I’ve thought that getting what I want will nudge me closer to the Lord, and I would measure the strength of my relationship with the Lord based on what I saw Him doing for me.

But this verse flips everything back to how it needs to be. We must delight in the Lord first. We must find our ever-present, ever-growing foundation of joy in Him and Him alone. And then He will give us the desires of our hearts.

The funny thing about doing this the right way – delighting in the Lord first – is that oftentimes it changes the desires of our heart. Finding our joy in the Lord first changes our hearts to be more responsive to His.

Delighting in the Lord frames and changes our desires to look more and more like His desires. My desire to travel and see the world has been constantly refined into a desire to follow where the Lord may lead me to be a reflection of Him. He delights to give us what we desire because we begin to desire the same things that He desires for us. Delighting in the Lord looks a lot like seeking Him first, over all things. It’s looking to Him in good and bad, and holding fast to His promises and the joy of our salvation.

He is the only place that our joy is secure and complete, and remaining faithful to that allows us to pursue Him in the pursuit of our heart’s desires.

I encourage you – “Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Chelsey