Joy: great happiness; delight.
a source of happiness
Happy: fortunate.
having, displaying, or marked by pleasure or joy.
fitting; appropriate.
pleased and willing
I am finding it really interesting to examine our language and how we are using our words. Week 3 of advent brings us to a week we are dedicating to joy. Websters' II gives us the above definintion which brings me to the word happy, again see above definition.
Interesting to see how God wants us to feel these things, as He made us to feel Joy. He even tells us how in Proverbs 12:20 "There is deciet in the hearts of those who plot evil, but joy for those who promote peace." To promote peace eh? hmmmmmm.....
Reminds me of the week which went before. Promoting peace brings us here, to a celebration of Joy. A remembering of the Joy that has been and the anticipation of the Joy that is to come. Of course the Joy that is to come here in our lives as we know them now, is only one aspect to the anticipation, with the Joy we will one day know throughout eternity as another thought to keep us all alligned to a bigger focus.
I have been reading an interesting book "The Rest of God, Restoring your soul by restoring Sabbath" by Mark Buchanan. He writes about giving up of ourselves and our wants to do what is needed or wanted by others. "But joy is found here." is what he writes explaining how God will bring us to joy if only we would follow His lead.
How hard we work and toil to find ourselves empty and definately not feeling Joy! A little pissed off as well if this is something we should be able to achieve, something we should be able to feel, and yet are so far removed from this sensation that we will question the very existance of such an emotion. We forget that we sometimes need to give up ourselves to achieve this, God will bring us there, if we follow His lead! If we give up ourselves (once again) we will experience something GREAT; great happiness as a matter of fact. JOY.
Proverbs 14:10 "Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy"
Bitter: having or being a sharp, unpleasant taste
causing or manifesting sharp physical or mental pain or discomfort.
caused by or exhibiting strong animosity
Sounds like the opposite of Joy to me! If we choose to learn about ourselves, about what is realy in our hearts, we will recognize the pain that is there. When we choose to no longer live in that pain, when we can move on to letting go of it and letting God deal with it, no one will be able to experience the Joy that will fill us in our hearts when it happens.
To celebrate peace we can begin inside ourselves, letting God love us and showing us how to love others. This seems to be a natural course to fall into celebrating Joy. As we promote Peace we will find Joy.
Who would have thought?!
Romans 15:13 "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may over flow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
As we trust, rely, on God he will fill us with Joy and Peace. As we hope in Him, (He is our Hope), as we give up ourselves to God, He gives us all what we can not give ourselves.... Joy and Peace.
One sermon I heard described joy as recognizing Gods' presence. If we are the center of our lives it is hard to see beyond our wants and needs. When we choose to give up ourselves we can see Gods' greatness, we can see His presence, we can let go of our wants to make room for someone else. We can experience joy. We can be filled with it.
I wish you all Joy as we enter the new year.
Nicole
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Advent, week 2
So here we are in week 2 of advent. This week is about PEACE. Wikipedia describes peace as:
A time of no fighting, no rudeness, no cruelty, but only calmness. An absence of hostility. Is a state of tranquility or harmony.
Our world is in turmoil, as is our lives as we wonder through our days trying to get STUFF accomplished. I think that there are many places to find peace. There is the world , and it seems so overwhelming to think of how we might think to bring peace to something so big. There is our country, provinces, city's', communities, homes, bodies, and our own minds. I wonder if we just think outside ourselves and get so overwhelmed with the size of things and then we give up hope?
I wonder what happens when we start in ourselves first. Or perhaps it is better to say, when we let God do His work in us. Peace seems like such an out there thing, but as I age (hopefully growing wiser as well) I am realizing that when I change what is going on inside that the stuff outside seems to change as well. Not all at once, and maybe it is all in how I've changed my perception of what I'm seeing, but it is different than it was. When I find peace inside my heart, mind, life as I live it then I feel like I can see Peace outside where I have never seen it before.
To think about having peace in our lives every day as a conscience choice is to sometimes not have our way. It is to sometimes recognize that we do not need to be right and that peace in our hearts and in our home is more important than winning an argument.
As we live with ourselves in a peaceful state, when God gives us the insight and the wisdom to know which fight is the one to draw the line with, then we will find peace in our homes. When we can draw our strength from God to not have the need for everyone to know that we are giving in, not because we are wrong, but because we can love our families enough to not care about being right, then we will find more peace in our homes. As we find peace in our homes, we will see peace in our communities, again because God will give us the wisdom and strength to be a better neighbour, to know when to stand up and when to let it go.When we see peace in our communities we will then see more in our cities, and our provinces', and then our country, and our continent, and then our world. When we are able to let God love us, let Him show us how to love others, we will experience peace, in our hearts, lives, homes, ...... you get the picture. (I hope I've painted it well.)
Now comes the hard part, letting GOD LOVE US! He does it well, we just have to accept it. He has tried over and over again to show us how much He loves us and each time we seem to balk at Him as He expresses how He feels about us, His children. The lie is not that we don't deserve Gods love, the lie is that we can't have Gods love. We only have to accept it, that is all, it is a gift. A GIFT! It is freely given, there is no earning, winning or anything we can do to not be loved. It is there, always. Waiting. Waiting for us to say, I'll take that! As we say yes to accepting Gods love we acknowledge how He has shown us His love in sending Jesus to live and then die for us.
Having Gods love does not mean we will never face adversary or bad stuff, but it does mean we can choose our state of mind. We can approach things more peacefully, with an understanding beyond our comprehension because we have a Holy Counsellor to guide us through our decisions. Not only do we have this mighty Counsellor to guide us through our decisions we also have His Son who has shown us how to love others and how to be peaceful within ourselves so we can be peaceful outside ourselves.
I wish you all a peaceful week.
Nicole
A time of no fighting, no rudeness, no cruelty, but only calmness. An absence of hostility. Is a state of tranquility or harmony.
Our world is in turmoil, as is our lives as we wonder through our days trying to get STUFF accomplished. I think that there are many places to find peace. There is the world , and it seems so overwhelming to think of how we might think to bring peace to something so big. There is our country, provinces, city's', communities, homes, bodies, and our own minds. I wonder if we just think outside ourselves and get so overwhelmed with the size of things and then we give up hope?
I wonder what happens when we start in ourselves first. Or perhaps it is better to say, when we let God do His work in us. Peace seems like such an out there thing, but as I age (hopefully growing wiser as well) I am realizing that when I change what is going on inside that the stuff outside seems to change as well. Not all at once, and maybe it is all in how I've changed my perception of what I'm seeing, but it is different than it was. When I find peace inside my heart, mind, life as I live it then I feel like I can see Peace outside where I have never seen it before.
To think about having peace in our lives every day as a conscience choice is to sometimes not have our way. It is to sometimes recognize that we do not need to be right and that peace in our hearts and in our home is more important than winning an argument.
As we live with ourselves in a peaceful state, when God gives us the insight and the wisdom to know which fight is the one to draw the line with, then we will find peace in our homes. When we can draw our strength from God to not have the need for everyone to know that we are giving in, not because we are wrong, but because we can love our families enough to not care about being right, then we will find more peace in our homes. As we find peace in our homes, we will see peace in our communities, again because God will give us the wisdom and strength to be a better neighbour, to know when to stand up and when to let it go.When we see peace in our communities we will then see more in our cities, and our provinces', and then our country, and our continent, and then our world. When we are able to let God love us, let Him show us how to love others, we will experience peace, in our hearts, lives, homes, ...... you get the picture. (I hope I've painted it well.)
Now comes the hard part, letting GOD LOVE US! He does it well, we just have to accept it. He has tried over and over again to show us how much He loves us and each time we seem to balk at Him as He expresses how He feels about us, His children. The lie is not that we don't deserve Gods love, the lie is that we can't have Gods love. We only have to accept it, that is all, it is a gift. A GIFT! It is freely given, there is no earning, winning or anything we can do to not be loved. It is there, always. Waiting. Waiting for us to say, I'll take that! As we say yes to accepting Gods love we acknowledge how He has shown us His love in sending Jesus to live and then die for us.
Having Gods love does not mean we will never face adversary or bad stuff, but it does mean we can choose our state of mind. We can approach things more peacefully, with an understanding beyond our comprehension because we have a Holy Counsellor to guide us through our decisions. Not only do we have this mighty Counsellor to guide us through our decisions we also have His Son who has shown us how to love others and how to be peaceful within ourselves so we can be peaceful outside ourselves.
I wish you all a peaceful week.
Nicole
Friday, December 4, 2009
Happy new year! The beginning of the christian liturgical year started this week with the beginning of advent. Sunday November 29Th was the first Sunday of advent, the candle we lite at church symbolizes HOPE.
A couple of years ago I did a bit of research into the seasons of the church year. I really never paid much attention to these things as I grew up, this is just the way things are. As children we accept these things, and as we grow we question them, why not? I feel it is our duty and our job to question. I believe it is how I learn things, ask a question and then go and find the answer. How else are we suppose to find the answer to the things that we believe, we need to search them out, and in the process we learn. So here I learned that advent is the beginning of the church year, we will spend the first 6 months of the year learning and the last 6 months we spend practicing (all the while we are suppose to practice of course).
Looking up the definition of advent I found it says:
A couple of years ago I did a bit of research into the seasons of the church year. I really never paid much attention to these things as I grew up, this is just the way things are. As children we accept these things, and as we grow we question them, why not? I feel it is our duty and our job to question. I believe it is how I learn things, ask a question and then go and find the answer. How else are we suppose to find the answer to the things that we believe, we need to search them out, and in the process we learn. So here I learned that advent is the beginning of the church year, we will spend the first 6 months of the year learning and the last 6 months we spend practicing (all the while we are suppose to practice of course).
Looking up the definition of advent I found it says:
- A time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of Christmas.
- Marks the beginning of the church liturgical year.
Latin adventus is the translation of the Greek word parousia, commonly used in reference to the second coming of Christ. As Christians we believe that the season of advent serves as a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for Christ as well as our waiting for Christs return. (info from wikipedia)
So here we begin our journey of the new year with HOPE! What an awesome way to begin anything new.
HOPE:
- The feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for the best.
- A person or thing in which expectations are centered.
- To look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence.
- To believe, desire, trust.
- To place trust; rely.
(info from wikipedia)
First of all I would like to keep in mind this year, with all the neat and wonderful craziness of Christmas, that this season is not only about what has happened, but it is about what will happen. We are waiting on our Lord to come again! I forget with all this Christmas that we are also hoping on our Christ to return. This year I really feel excited as we are going on a holiday around this time and I am so excited that I don't think my children have anything on me for being excited. Pretty soon I am going to feel like my insides are going to burst out and get everything all slimy and gross but I won't care because I am so excited and the anticipation of the trip we are going to take is .... is like.... overwhelming in a kid like way that it brings back memories of the feeling that I am describing. Do you remember when you felt like you could just burst, if you were to scream out as loud as possible it still would not release the excitement inside of you. Like shaking up a soda pop bottle and then waiting for someone to open the top. (hummmmm the memories) I am so starting to feel like the soda bottle!
Anticipation in what we are waiting for, expectant waiting. Hope, that what we are waiting for CAN be had! We hope in the Lord, we rely on Him, we place our trust, we believe, we look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence. I am seeing this years beginning with a new eye and a new heart. I will look forward to Christmas with a new perspective as I will try to remember that this beginning is not only about remembering what has happened with the birth of Gods' only son, Jesus Christ, but that we are waiting with HOPE for his return.
So, happy new year! This week I wish for you HOPE!
Nicole
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