joy and gratitude

The Signs of the Hope We Have in Christ Jesus
Two thousand years ago, a very special baby was born in a town called Bethlehem.  His parents had traveled about 65 miles on foot to come to this town in response to a government mandate. When they got there along with all the other people who were traveling for the same reason, they discovered that at their family’s house, all the bedrooms were already full. 

Houses in that day were usually constructed of several stories with the rooms located on the second and third floors. The first floor was typically enclosed with a low rock wall and served as a pen where the weak and vulnerable among the cattle, sheep and donkeys were brought in for the night. The young couple had no choice but to bed down with the animals, and to complicate matters, the young woman was experiencing her first labor pains.

Can you imagine the frustration they might have experienced? They had traveled for days. They were footsore and weary. I can imagine the trip had taxed not only their strength but also their patience. And now this…not even a decent place to bring a baby into the world.

I remember how I felt the day before my first baby was born, so I can imagine the young woman was very uncomfortable. After the long ride on the donkey, she must have longed for a soft bed to lie upon. After days on the dusty trail, she would have been eternally grateful for a bath and clean sheets. This baby would be her first, and I can imagine she had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. She didn’t even have a doctor to help her. She was on her own, except for her husband. What would they do if there were complications with the birth?

I wonder how they responded to the circumstances they encountered.  Were they thankful for clean hay and a roof over their heads, or did they grumble and complain - as we often do - when our circumstances are not what we expected?

My pastor’s mother taught her children this principle: “Your attitude will determine your altitude.” If we expect to be blessed in all our endeavors, the best way to begin is with gratitude. Being thankful opens doors of opportunity for our Heavenly Father to pour out an ever increasing supply of blessings.  When we are thankful, our speech and our actions permeate the atmosphere, changing us and the people around us and releasing joy.

Gratitude and joy are linked together.  You cannot have one without the other. Joy is not happiness because joy is not dependent on our circumstances. Joy is dependent on who God is, and gratitude is our response for the good things God has done for us.

We know this young couple found joy in the midst of their circumstances because the baby came without complications. Filled with wonder at the birth of this child, his mother tenderly wrapped him in strips of cloth and gently laid him in a feed trough.  I can imagine both his mother and her husband breathing a sigh of relief even as they marveled at ten little fingers and ten little toes – a perfectly formed baby boy.

Suddenly, the heavens around them exploded with the sound of angels singing as they announced the birth of this very special baby to shepherds who were watching over their flocks in the fields. “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you.” (Luke 2:10-11, NIV) And then a great company of heavenly host appeared praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.” (Luke 2:13-14, NIV)

What a sight that must have been and how glorious the sounds that rang through the night air. I wonder if the child’s parents heard and saw all of this from where they were in the stable. The shepherds wasted no time.  They left their flocks to go look for the baby, and when they found him, they, too, praised God for all the things they had heard and seen. They were filled with an exceedingly great joy.

Did you hear that?  Gratitude for what God had done produced an overwhelming joy that permeated the heavens and impacted all the people on the earth.  But the story doesn’t end there.

Thirty-three years later, Jesus, the baby born that night, was praying for all of us as He talked with His Heavenly Father. “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” (John 17:13, NIV) Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth to fill us with His joy. The Greek word translated joy in this verse is charan and it means “the awareness (of God's) grace and favor (Strong’s 5479).

God made joy  - the awareness of His grace and favor - available to us through His Son, Jesus, who “for the joy (the awareness of God’s grace and favor) set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2, NIV) “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:6-8, NIV)

This is the season when we hear “joy to the world” and “peace on earth”. This is the season during which we delight in giving and receiving gifts. On that night over two thousand years ago, our Father God gave us the very best gift: joy – the awareness of His grace and favor – and this joy is embodied in the Person of His Son, Jesus.

We have been given the freedom to choose – we can receive this glorious gift – this joy, this awareness of God’s grace and favor - or we can reject it. If we choose to reject the gift, we choose to live a life without hope.   But, if we receive the gift God gave us through His Son, Jesus, we have a hope and a future; and joy is readily available to us in every one of our circumstances – even the negative ones!  All we have to do is choose joy and then make it our constant practice.

Blessing
Always be joyful (filled with the awareness of His grace and favor)…No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, TLB) May God, (who is) the source of hope, fill you completely with joy (the awareness of His grace and favor) and peace because you trust in Him; and may you overflow with confident hope (expectation, trust and confidence) through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13, NLT)

(c) Linda Sue Harper 2019