Joy? Really?....joy?

Amidst the swirl of life I start this post...who knows how long it may remain just a draft (turns out it was about 60 hours). Often it seems that my internal reservoirs of stuff to process just fill up. Not with nicely packaged, fully resolved life conclusions or breakthroughs. No, its more just ragged pieces and shards of thoughts that although incomplete, still seem somehow worth expressing. My hope is that at best, these articulated fragments might somehow miraculously gel and serve to paint in more of my picture. At worst, expressing them might at least bring me a modicum of simple relief.

Circumstantially, our family is back in the soup of juggling parental caregiving. Sandi's Mom fell and broke her hip on Thursday night and had it replaced on Saturday. This dear woman is wracked by arthritis and chronic pain. The fingers of her hands are like the gnarled roots of a tree. They deserve to be captured on canvas by a sensitive artist who could depict them as a pictorial symbol of what the world can deal out to us and yet regardless, we must persevere... there is beauty in that.
Sandi's Dad continues to recover from having his left foot amputated on Christmas day due to complications of CHF and previously undiagnosed diabetes. So Mom has been Dad's primary caregiver in the home. Between them, these two, dear, 80+ year old saints kind of make up one, sort of functioning person. But that fragile thread of functionality has been broken for now as Mom lays in the bed of managed care, surgical recovery and therapy.

So our family met Sunday night at 7PM around the kitchen table to carve out who will stay with Dad on which nights, meals, Dr. visits for Dad, hospital and soon TCU visits for Mom. Sandi's only- child status doesn't offer a cast of many to pitch in here. So the 2 kids still at home,Sandi and I are the "team". There is the church and even some friends that could be support possibilities but it turns out that Swedes just don't (can't?) ask for help and for now, (I'm now a Swede by marriage but my Italian nature makes me a pretty funny version of one!) we are keeping it in the immediate family.

OK, so my purpose for coloring in these details is really just to provide some backdrop for several arbitrary facts comprising part of the swirl of my 'now'. And 'now' is all I really have, it's where I need to live. Other pieces of the 'now' include the need for all 4 of us to maintain our jobs (3 full-time, 1 part-time). I am particularly desirous of keeping much of my focus on Sandi and how I can help nourish her during this latest rendition of the war zone of life. The brunt of all the logistics and juggling falls on her. No matter how much the other family members put on their calendars, any way you cut it, we are still just "supportin' cast" and Sandi has the lead role in this episode of Days of Our Lives.

So anyhow, with that as a lengthy introduction, I'm in my A.M. devotions and the subject of joy comes up. Regardless of one's theology, the fact that Jesus promises joy is tough to avoid. Joy? Why does this category seem so absent for me, so almost irrelevant? Worse yet, why does it feel almost like a cruel joke to entertain it as an expectation or as something to deliberately pursue? I mean seriously, joy? Right now, with the apparent outlook of the summer being tanked amidst the needs of getting family through another day,....joy? You must be freaking joking, right?
Yet joy is often spoken of in the scriptures...in John alone we read that Jesus has come that his joy would be in us and that this joy would be complete(15:11), that we are to ask anything in his name that we might receive and our joy will be complete(16:24), that Jesus told us his truths before returning to the Father so that we might have the full measure of his joy within us (17:13)and, in Nehemiah, that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Joy was certainly never meant to represent an irrelevant category...... Jesus seemed to see it as an essential part of what he came to do in us. Joy is the fruit of being in dynamic partnership with Jesus.

Wow! How humbling to see and have to confess the virtual absence of such joy in my life. Or am I just misunderstanding the word joy? Is it meant here in some subtly different way than my 21st century understanding can grok? Might the Greek lend a different sense of what this all means.
Not having the time right now to check out the Greek, I am left with the thought that joy is indeed what burbles up from a heart given over to God in utter submission. That yes, in the midst of trying to earn a living, juggling parental care, still launching kids and generally keeping the home fires burning there is a joy to be had. But perhaps not the yippee skippy kind of joy a 4 year old regularly exhibits. No, this is a more sober-minded, deep-rooted joy. Joy that one must be intentional about observing and acknowledging and finally confessing.

Bottom line, if I truly am the person the Bible says I am in Christ, if my position is in fact as it is described in the New Covenant, then Katie-bar-the door, I have every reason to have a deep-seated joy amidst the circumstances of today. Yet, it is a joy that must be fought for by being intentional and even forcefully aligning myself with the truth of what the Kingdom has to say about me in the face of the debilitating lies, attacks and innuendos offered up daily by Caesar's world.

I do enjoy theology. It's dangerous though. It can so easily serve as a category of understanding that merely stays mentally compartmentalized but never goes on to shape the actual experiencing of reality (ie. mere belief). Theologically, I understand joy and it's source (the finished work of Christ on my behalf).
I go down on record as desiring to give joy more relevancy, more priority. To being more intentional about letting it surface in my conscience more often. And to not rolling my eyes the next time something reminds me that Jesus actually intended my joy to be an essential ingredient of my walk with God, not just an optional accessory only available for a few of the super advanced followers of Jesus. Joy is for James and it's available NOW! Mine is to more fully appropriate it.

As a matter of fact, the presence of joy in my life is really a type of barometer. If I'm feeding off of/chasing the empty promises of Caesar's kingdom, my joy will be fleeting and totally based on circumstances. Good things happening to me = joy. Bad things happening to me = sorrow.
But if I am intentional in keeping the truth of who James is in Jesus: that I am part of the royal priesthood of believers, that I am a new creation, that I have been raised with Christ and am seated with him in the heavenly places, that I am Christ's friend, that I have been delegated his authority to use his name, that I have been called to advance the Kingdom of God, that I will never be separated from him and his love for me and that my eternal destiny is secure in the full work of Christ, then joy can't help but percolate it's way to the surface of my consciousness. My position in Christ will trump the temporary circumstances of this sojourn through a fallen world. I will have food to eat that is not of this kingdom.

You know, it's starting to feel like a sermon but I'm really just trying this on for size. I am in process, the process of being transformed, of being renovated into the image of Christ. Despite the fact that Jesus set his face like flint toward Calvary, he never lost the joy of who he was, how he was related to his Father, to where he was returning and for the bold work that he came to earth to accomplish. His joy was other worldly and so is the source of mine.
Bring it on Santiago, set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. Today represents only the opening chapters in the forever-ness of Kingdom projects where there will be no tears and sorrow. So Santiago, gird up those loins, get back into the fray and dare to be joyful in spite of the strong headwind.

Will the ushers please come forward....