Inspired by . . . Day 6: A JOYful Heart
Inspired by . . . Day 6: A JOYful Heart
This post is part of a 31 day series on JOY
You may access all the past days by clicking here.
For His anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life:
weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Psalm 30:5
As some of you know I’m in the middle of reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. Confession: This book is making it hard to sleep at night. The tide of emotions that this story has spawned is overwhelming. Anxiety, fear, disbelief, conviction, empathy, compassion, horror.
Even more than the Apostle Paul, Corrie’s sister, Betise Ten Boom could be the poster child for JOY.
When referring to the hospital at Ravensbruck {the notorious women’s extermination camp}, Corrie noted, “[Betsie] was not repelled by the room as I was. To her it was simply a setting in which to talk about Jesus – as indeed was every place else.”
This is just one example of Betsie’s JOY-filled response to her circumstances. Circumstances that we cannot even begin to imagine. The women in these camps, indeed Corrie and Betsie themselves had been so mistreated that at one point in the narrative Corrie describes them in this way, “But we had become animals, incapable of plan or system.”
Can you imagine the impact that Betsie’s JOY had on those around her? The women were in awe. They were drawn to Betsie and the Light that was around, and within her.
All degrees of joy reside in the heart.
How can a Christian be full of happiness (if happiness depends on the things that happen)
when he is in a world where the devil is doing his best to twist souls away from God,
where people are tortured physically, where some are downtrodden
and do not get a chance? It would be the outcome of the most
miserable selfishness to be happy under such conditions.
But a joyful heart is never an insult,
and joy is never touched by external conditions. ~Oswald Chambers
JOY can stand in the face of evil.
As Believer’s we can have JOY in midst of the evils of our day,
just as Betsie had in hers.
Blessings,
Quotations taken from Biblical Psychology, © Discovery House Publishers
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