It’s time to arrogantly rejoice!I love this idea…I have b...
I love this idea…I have been raised to think that being arrogant is “bad”. I don’t typically like arrogance in others, I certainly don’t want to see it come out in my own life.
…but what if?
What if there was a religious or arrogant joy that ins’t rooted in who we are or what we bring to the table but in God?
Now that…that would be cool.
And it’s not rooted in the person of God but the promise of God…ok NOW we are getting somewhere. The idea of a joyful heart in Proverbs 17:22 isn’t simply that I put on a happy face, suck it up and just act happy - it runs much deeper than that.
The word “cheerful” means joyful, glad and if you start to double click on it a bit more we see that it drives home this idea of being arrogantly joyful! Given, as children of God, we are steered away from arrogance it becomes clear to me that this arrogance isn’t in anything that we bring to the party but in who God is and how we interact with Him.
I can walk around in joy, live in joy, act in joy…with a cheerful and glad heart knowing that God is for me, I’m His and nothing in this world is going to take any of that away from me. I don’t have to let the things of life get me down. I don’t have to feel moved or be moved by any circumstances, any fears or doubts, any feelings - emotions - sensations that might try to pull me away from the truth that I am grounded in God and if He is for me…who or what can be against me?!?!
That is pretty powerful … It’s like living life knowing, confidently knowing, that no matter what happens in life I will THRIVE and overcome. It’s not giving the rough patches in life lip service or the “Christian head nod” but truly looking at life and all that it has to offer and saying…ok cool, I’ve got this - I choose to find joy in this situation, I choose to be glad because God is with me and this isn’t able to come close to standing against me.
Living life from this perspective is living an arrogantly joyful life that provides healing to others…it turns the dried, crushed and stricken bones to life again! Living an arrogantly joyful life brings life because it points to God and offers hope, freedom, life, love, mercy…all the things!
I want to live my life in that way…I want to live an arrogantly joyful life that is fully grounded in the promise that God is for me, nothing can stand against me and that God is going to work out every situation in my life for my good. It may not be easy, it may not be fun, it may not be pleasant…but I can be arrogantly joyful in my knowledge and understanding of who God is and how God is at work in every single moment of life.
