Why Are You Destroying My Joy?

A coworker said this to me when I was complaining about my day.

Yes ... I'm aware of the irony. I just wrote a blog post on the topic of joy, and here I am stealing someone else's. Truthfully, it was a comment that was made tongue-in-cheek, and I don't think I was actually destroying this person's joy. But it got me to thinking.

Our attitudes affect other people.

It's an idea that's so elementary that it's easy to ignore. So, I'll say it again:

Our attitudes affect other people.

At times, each of us can behave like an emotional parasite, feeding off the energy of another, or performing for sympathy. I want to be careful to distinguish this from the times we are really in need of emotional support. Our friends, family, and coworkers want to be there for us when we are in need, and more often than not are totally willing to bear our burdens so that we can regain our emotional footing. I think the distinction between being an emotional parasite and accepting emotional support is that so.

What is the purpose, or the motivation for seeking that support? Are you seeking it because you want to climb out of your pit but need someone to offer you a hand, or do you want to pull someone into the pit with you for some company down there?

The idea of drowning is another metaphor that's often used for depression or emotional turmoil, and is also helpful for getting at this distinction. Are you using the arm that is extended to pull yourself out of the current, or are you pulling the other person into the raging rapids with you?

The same is the case with sin in general. When accountability fails, it's most often because it's improperly used. Sometimes it's a sin contest with one person unconsciously trying to match the other sin-for-sin. Other times, we confess without setting up any battle plan to avoid sin when it comes knocking again. We are content to wallow in perpetual defeat, confession, and repentance. There are too many passages about the power of God to defeat sin (ex.: Rom. 6:14, I Cor. 10:13, I Cor. 6:19-20, Gal. 5:1, Rom. 12:2, II Cor. 3:18, etc.)  for us to be content with the status quo until we escape to heaven and are fully sanctified.

Our attitudes and the way we think about sin will shape the ways we go about defeating it. Like I said in the previous post, Christ drank the bitter cup that we might drink living water. Let's not go back to drinking nastiness when Jesus has provided a cup that is so much better. Let's also not steal our friends' cups to quench our own thirst. There's plenty of living water to go around. He is, after all, the one who made more wine when it ran out, and turned 5 loaves and 2 fish into a meal for 5,000 with leftovers.

Joy and Living Water blog post

A blog post I wrote for inspiredfaith.com: http://blog.inspiredfaith.com/joy-and-living-water


“My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water”
-Jeremiah 2:13

but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
-John 4:14

“My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
-Matt. 26:42

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty” … When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”
-John 19:28,30


Joy is an elusive thing, moreso as we become adults. There’s a reason most of us are nostalgic for our childhoods. When we were kids, the world was a mystical place of discovery, safety, and fun. We were blissfully ignorant of the constant pressures of adult awareness. Adam and Eve reached out for a piece of fruit that promised knowledge and got more than they bargained for. God offered them the simplicity of living by faith, and they chose complexity. We’ve been trying to unlearn that knowledge ever since.


Joy is a close relative of contentment and thanksgiving. I think the reason joy is so elusive, is that our daily lives wage war against contentment and thanksgiving. There’s always something missing, and because we know there’s got to be more to life, we seek to fill our lives with more. Whether it’s something as obvious as the stuff we buy or something more subtle like seeking others’ acceptance, we’re always looking for something else. We are thirsty and the cups we drink from leave us that way.


So what’s the secret? How do we find the joy that’s so elusive? How do we quench our thirst?


One of my favorite passages of scripture is John 4. Here we read about a woman so broken and used that she comes to the well during the heat of the day to avoid the other women of her community. She’s had six husbands and the last one hasn’t even given her the dignity of marriage. We can easily read between the lines and see a cup filled to the brim with deep sorrow.


Jesus meets her at the well in this state of loneliness–like Isaac (through his servant), Jacob, and Moses before him–symbolically becoming her seventh husband. He offers her his right hand of fellowship, renewed hope, restoration, and the gift of living water.


This living water is costly. You can’t fill a cup that’s already full, and the woman, like us, has filled hers to the brim with other things that add up to wrath and sorrow. Jesus had to drink it to fill it. Like a dad who eats the nasty concoction his daughter created on her plate while playing with her food, Jesus took our cup, swished it around a little and then swallowed its contents. Then he filled it again, this time with living water that works a deep transformation within us to slake our thirst.


Joy starts with an awareness of this reality. When the truth catches up to us and slows us down enough so that we put down the nastiness we keep drinking, we can take a refreshing swallow of living water. Contentment and thanksgiving for what Christ has done bloom on the palate of our soul, and we can only respond with a joyful sigh.


Our lives on this earth are filled with trouble just as sparks fly up (Job 5:7), and many times we thirst for joy and relief from sorrow.


But Jesus drank the cup of wrath and sorrow that we might drink deeply of the cup of joy and quench our thirst forever.

CT Music interview

I interviewed a fledgling music group for Christianity Today back in August and never posted the link here. Here it is (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/music/interviews/2010/aptlytitled-august31.html).

Re-enchantment

A friend blessed me deeply last Thursday in a way he cannot fully understand.

Backing up a little, this friend and I had lunch a couple weeks ago. A couple weeks prior, I had ended another relationship with a girl. Another failed experiment in romance. Starting back at square one again. A couple years prior, I had begun an entirely different experiment: to examine my faith.

I was running out of gas, becoming complacent and lazy. God and I were in the sitting around on the couch in sweats phase of our relationship. I needed to take a step back, sweep away the cobwebs and figure out why I was a Christian and not something else. More importantly, if I was a Christian, why it didn't alter the way I lived my life. Christianity should be so much more than a supplement for a healthy, balanced life. 

So, I dove headlong into philosophy and other sorts of non-fiction (until that point I'd been an exclusively fiction guy--why think about real life when I'm trying to escape into a book?). I joined a discussion group at the local community college to meet some non-Christians. And I tried to view my faith from a detached vantage point.

The short version, it was a miserable existence. I found it hard to read the Bible and pray. Though I was singing in the choir, I found it hard to worship. I felt reclusive. My former college pastor described it best: I was throwing a heavy log on the fire, and the flames were being smothered a little in hopes that the log would fuel a more sustained fire than the brush I had been feeding the fire with before. I missed the fire. I missed the intimacy I'd always enjoyed with God

Back to lunch with the friend. I told him about my situation and he offered some counsel. More importantly, he filed away the conversation in his memory. That Thursday, at our small group Bible study, he discretely pulled a book from his bookshelf and handed it to me. Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl by N.D. Wilson. Once again, the adage don't judge a book by its cover is proven true. The cover is garish and the title off-putting at first, like an attempt to be edgy that one expects to deliver the nutrition of cotton candy upon reading.

Turns out the opposite is the case. The title is meant to be poetic, rather than trendy, and the book more than delivers. Those who know Shakespeare will roll their eyes (I don't blame them, I would have too), but N.D. Wilson's prose is vivid and silky as if written in iambic pentameter. It's impossible to describe. You just have to read it yourself. The content of the book is as beautifully well-crafted as the word choices.

Wilson takes on the task of reminding us that creation personifies and mimics its Creator (Ps. 19:1). Using the seasons as a framing device (more often than not the kiss of death for a writer), he ruminates about his daily life, using everything at his disposal in the manner it was intended, as a metaphor through which we can understand characteristics of God, the universe, and our place in God's play.

Not really intending to review the book in this space, I'll simply say that it left me re-enchanted and challenged. As opposed to Crazy Love, which left me feeling guilty and sobered (both good emotions when put to good use, but otherwise death-spirals), this book was inspiring. To continue my earlier image, it was like gasoline for the log-choked flames of my faith.

Read the book and let me know what you think.