Strength in Joy

Nehemiah 8:10 states that "the Joy of the Lord is our strength." But what does that really mean? What does it mean to have strength in joy? How can joy be strength? 

Control is something that is difficult to give up. To be able to laugh and enjoy your life means that you are giving up your right to stress and try to control whatever is happening in your life. It means that you are resting. Who knew that resting took strength too? Just like vulnerability takes strength to be able to open up, so it takes strength to rest when you don't have control.

To have joy and rest in the thought that God is ultimately in control is to kick the enemy in the pants. The enemy will do his best to distract us from God, and if he can get us distracted with stress or focusing on anything besides God, then he's winning. Really, he's already lost the war, but he does his best to take down the children of God and keep them from intimacy with the Father.

I'm struggling so hard to write this right now. I'm struggling with things from the past being brought up that hurt more than words can say. I'm questioning my qualifications to even write about joy and how we have strength from it. I feel very weak right now. But I feel like this is a post the enemy doesn't want me to write.

Even as I write about how weak I feel, I already know that this weakness is a lie. And once you know something is a lie, it's hard to keep believing it.

The enemy attacks the area that you're called. If you are called to lead, you might find you struggle with feeling insignificant. If you were called to be a speaker, you might struggle with the belief that your voice doesn't matter. The enemy will lie until he's blue in the face to keep you from realizing your calling and living up to your true potential. But that's all that they are: lies. They are powerless unless you agree with them and believe them. But you have the power to stop believing these lies.

God has called me Joy. I can go more into detail on that later, but it's a fact. So what have I struggled with most of my life? Negative thinking and depression. In fact, it took some convincing from God for me to believe that He could call me Joy. He had to remind me of when I was little and how much I laughed and how people would comment on how they loved my laugh. He told me that how a child is, before they get tainted by the world and the lies of the enemy, is how He created them to be. 

God has called me Joy and is helping me get back to the person that He made me to be. To give Him my troubles and heartbreak takes the strength to let go. To say that I can't control this and I am giving my sense of control to Him and am trusting Him to take care of me and my future takes strength. It doesn't sound like giving something away would take strength, but it does.

For some reason, even in situations we can't control, we feel like if we worry about it enough or feel enough for it, we can somehow control it. While that's not true, it still feels like it. Especially, when it's a situation when you feel someone has wronged you. We feel like we can hold a grudge against someone and really make them pay. But the only one really paying is us. If we feel someone died unjustly, we can be angry and bitter at God, but the only ones suffering is us. Suppose you have a court case coming up and you feel totally out of control, but you feel like you must worry about it, hoping that will make it go better.... but it really doesn't help anything. 

To give it to God takes strength, and to laugh at it shows your strength. To be able to laugh and enjoy life, even in hard and trying times, shows the enemy that you won't be phased by his attempts to pull you down and distract you. Once you can identify his lies in your life, laugh at them! They have no power when you see them for what they are: lies! 

Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him. We are that joy set before Him, and His joy in us is what brought Him through the pain of the cross. Without Him going to the cross, there would always be separation between us and God. But His joy in us took Him through and helped Him endure. His joy was His strength. 

Our joy that we get when we give up our need for control and even our right to be angry, is so much greater than living in worry or anger. I've heard that peace is silent joy, and joy is loud peace. To give up our negative emotions, no matter how hard it is, brings us to a place where we can encounter God's joy and peace. That is your strength. You are strong when you have joy. It shows your strength. It is your strength to get you through the hardest times. 

So God has not just called me Joy... He has also called me Strong! No wonder the enemy didn't want me to know my identity! I now laugh at his plans and his lies. They hold no power over me.

When was the last time you laughed at your problems?