Finding Joy In Everything

When the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in streams, and as soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure that it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart.  Charles Spurgeon

I am having a little problem with joy this morning.  Why this morning you ask?  Well, here is another story in the life of a struggling Christian. 

Yesterday I pull onto our street after work and I drive in front of my house.  We live on a corner lot so we have a parkway that runs beside our house.  I pass in front of our house and there is a big stack of boxes piled on the sidewalk in the corner of our yard.  The boxes are folded flat and scattered haphazardly on the corner of our lawn.   So the first thought that runs through my mind is, did Jerry stack those there.  I’m thinking that is not the case because we didn’t have that many boxes in the house and we stack our trash in the alley.

When Jerry gets home shortly after I do, he walks into the house and asks me where those boxes in the front yard came from.  I told him I was going to ask him the same thing.  Since we are at work all day we have no idea where the boxes came from, who put them there or even why they are there.  Needless to say, after both of us worked all day and didn’t get home until 6:00pm, neither of us wanted to go out to our front yard and pick up boxes that weren’t even ours.  So this morning when I left the house in the dark, there are the boxes piled in the corner of our yard.  It frustrated me all over again.  I should have picked them up the night before.

Some of my frustration comes from the fact that when we mow our alley we first have to clean out all the soda cans, food wrappers and trash that people throw into our bushes behind our fence.  I was raised that you don’t throw trash out of the car.  My thoughts on this are that God provided us a place to live and we should care enough about it to not junk it up.    

I admit my first reaction was to take them and stack them on the corner next to us.  That was not very Christian-like of me because what if the neighbor didn’t put them there and I certainly am not showing my neighbor what it means to be filled with joy.   

So all the way to work I am thinking about what God would like me to learn from this.  What would reflect God the most to others in this circumstance?  That started me thinking about how they might have gotten there in the first place.  What if someone stacked boxes into their truck so they could move and didn’t tie them down and the boxes slid off the bed of the truck onto our yard and they never knew the boxes fell off. Then there could also be a neighbor who doesn’t like us so they are simply providing the tools for us to move.  When you look at it that way it’s kind of sweet.

Most of the time what happens in circumstances like this is we jump to conclusions.  We think we already know the answer so we make a fool of ourselves.   I admit I have done the jumping to conclusions thing many times in my life.

So this evening I will get out and pick up the boxes in my yard. For all I know the person who lost the boxes may decide to come by today and retrieve them.  The thing is if any of my neighbors look out the window and see me picking up the boxes and taking them to the trash they will get a much better picture of God than if I walked across the street and put them on another neighbor’s lawn.    

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I often struggle with finding joy in everything.  I get frustrated with the things around me and it is often then reflected in how I treat other people.  This is not Your plan for me and I know it.  I need Your help to find joy in everything I do, so that others can see You in me.     

Scripture:  I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.  For as the earth brings forth its bud, As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. Isaiah 61:10-11

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1:2-8