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“Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2
Many years ago, when I was first married, I had an experience that was both devastatingly sad and eternally impactful in helping me to always have in my mind, “This is not the end. This is not my final home. I need to live for the kingdom to come.”
The puzzle for me has been understanding how to personally deal with suffering and yet have joy at the same time. This is a big subject and hardly one I can deal with comprehensively in a short post, but I do want to at least touch on this important question.
Being born with a strong sense of justice has made it difficult for me to understand why so much suffering happens to good people at the hands of a broken world. In reading Scripture and pondering life, I realized that in order for me to have joy and hold God's hand in this dance of life, I have to mount up over these questions. The seeming inconsistencies of unanswered prayer, sickness, broken relationships, sin that corrupts, destroys, and all the consequences of life that tear our hearts apart, will be satisfied when we are with Him. If I am to dance, I do so by holding God's hand in faith, celebrating that he will, in time, bring justice to our world, to all of His children.
As I began to examine joy in this context, I was not seeking to deal with the "why" of difficulty. That was a given. Instead I was seeking out the reality of how to live with joy amidst of the sadness and death. The writer of Hebrews compared our lives to a race of endurance, a race in which joy is connected to what lies ahead, not to what is here right now. In chapter 11, he called us to remember all of those who have gone before us who ran their race and finished well. We are to ponder Jesus, who for the joy before Him, endured the cross.
Join me today on my podcast as I pursue joy in the darkness.