Review
So far we have studied six ways to love God more. In this lesson we examine number seven – express your joy. If you want to have more love for God, more desire for Him, more delight in Him; then verbally express the love and desire and delight you already have. Or to say all that in a single word: Praise.
Praise is Joy
David talks more about praise in Ps.63 that about any other subject. Even though he is miserable, he is in the desert, he is dry, thirsty, and weary, still the consuming topic on his mind more than anything else is joyful praise.
3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
4 Therefore I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5b …with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
7b … I sing in the shadow of your wings.
11 the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him
In the last lesson we found that all praise is joyful praise. I want to take some time in this lesson to convince you of that, because it took me a while to be convinced of it, and I suspect a lot of you are like me. As I look back on my life and all the things I have offered God as praise, most of it was more of a discipline than a genuine expression of joy. There have been countless times in my life when I have spoken or sung words of praise while feeling very little if any joy. The words were pushed out of my mouth not by an overflow of joy in the Lord, but by an act of resolve and duty. So many times I have sung songs of happiness in the Lord without being very happy at all. And what I am suggesting is that it is questionable whether that kind of thing can actually be called praise. If there is no joy behind your praise, it is not praise.
In Ps.63 David uses 5 different words for praise in 5 verses.
The word glorify in v.3 is ?????? shabach (to commend, praise or extol)
The word praise in v.4 is ??????? barak (to bless)
The word praise in vv.5 and 11 is ????? halal. It means to boast or to shout for joy (BDB). Halal without happiness is a contradiction in terms – there just is no such thing. The word only refers to joyful shouting or sinigng.
Ps.78:63 (in a time of judgment) their maidens had no wedding songs (halal)
1 Chrn.16:10 Glory (halal) in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. (That is parallelism –the same thing stated in two slightly different ways. “Praise Him. In other words, rejoice.”)
2 Chrn.20:19 Then some Levites … stood up and praised the LORD, the God of Israel, with very loud voice. (The volume demonstrates emotion.)
Then in v.11 he uses the word ?????? samach (translated rejoice). That word is all about joy. It means to take pleasure in, to rejoice, to have mirth, to be glad, to be happy.
And it is amazing how often it appears as a command. In Dt.12 God is giving the rules about burnt offerings.
Dt.12:7 you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to
11 bring everything I command you: … 12 And there rejoice before the LORD your God
18 you are to eat them in the presence of the LORD your God … and you are to rejoice before the LORD your God
There are literally dozens more examples throughout the Old Testament. (You can see why God was so angry with the priests in Mal.1 who were offering all the prescribed offerings but they were saying, “What a burden.” They were in violation of this command big time. God will not be worshipped or served that way.) When God says, “Have a nice day” it comes in the imperative mood.
And there’s one more word David uses in Ps.63. The word translated “singing” in v.5 is a word that means to sing or shout for joy. It never means to just sing.
The verb form of the same word appears in v.7.
7b … I sing in the shadow of your wings.
??????? (noun – v.5)
????? (verb – v.7)
Lv.9:24 when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.
1 Chrn.16:33 Then the trees of the forest will shout for joy before the LORD
David uses all 5 of those terms in 5 verses. He is making a powerful statement in this psalm about praise. Praise that is honoring to God is praise that comes from powerful joy - joy so powerful that it causes words and songs and shouts to come out of your mouth. If you have a lot of joy in your heart but it doesn’t seem to make it out of your mouth, that is not powerful enough joy. In fact, it should not only open your mouth; it should get your body moving too.
4 in your name I will lift up my hands.
Lifting your hands in praise has nothing whatsoever to do with charismatic or not charismatic. Nor is it an issue of culture or tradition. It is the way God commanded us to praise Him in His Word. If you are never moved to lift your hands to God, never stirred in your soul enough sing and shout for joy, never moved to stand, to kneel, to lift your face to heaven, to bow in humility; if there’s not enough joy in your heart to affect your body, your praise has a long way to go.
Are God’s blessings on your life restricted to the spiritual realm? Don’t His expressions of love bless your entire being? Doesn’t part of your enjoyment of Him include physical pleasures and comforts enjoyed by your body? So if God blesses your entire being why shouldn’t your entire being be involved in the response of praise? Have your hands been left out of God’s blessing? Has your mouth been deprived of God’s kindness? Then why should they not involve themselves in thanksgiving and praise? God is worthy to be praised – out loud, and demonstrably; not just inwardly and silently. Are we dumb, that we can only praise internally? Are we paralyzed, that we can’t lift our hands? The people around us see us receive God’s blessings with their eyes, let them also hear His praises with their ears. Why should they witness unpraised blessing? Offer your body to Him as part of your worship, as a living sacrifice. Joy that doesn’t move your body is not very big joy.
*************
So I hope it is clear to you that there is no non-joyful praise.
Psalm 71:23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you
To talk about non-emotional praise is like talking about cold fire or dark light or boring fun. Those terms are contradictions.
Some of you might find this a little unsettling. It is unsettling because we do not have direct control over our affections, which means we can’t just decide, as a mere act of the will, to praise God. Just deciding to be joyful doesn’t always make you joyful. And if the joy is not there then what you are offering is not praise.
Not even David could just generate praise by an act of his will. In Ps.51 when David was repenting over his sin of adultery and murder and asking God to restore to him the joy of his salvation, he had a very interesting request for God in v.15 of that psalm.
Ps.51:15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
David, the psalmist, had to pray to ask God to pry his lips open so that he could praise Him. Think about that for a second. What was David asking for? Words? Do you think David would have had any trouble at that moment coming up with words of praise? No – that would have been a piece of cake. All he had to do was pull out some of his old psalms and read them. It would have been a very easy thing for David to just start saying things like, “Lord I praise Your name. You are good, majestic, holy, righteous, loving, wise…” Anyone can do that anytime they want. But David knew that, by itself, is not praise. David wanted to praise God, but he knew that in order to offer true praise he would need what he asked for a few verses earlier, restore to me the joy of my salvation. He was asking God to enable him to praise.
David had been crushed to powder by God’s mighty hand of discipline. He had been exposed, his baby died, and God had announced some very serious, painful punishments that were still to come. David was experiencing the agony of true repentance – and I don’t know that there is any more painful agony than that. Nothing hurts more than God’s displeasure – nothing. And all that pain silenced David’s joyful praise. Those lips that had uttered some of the greatest praise ever known were now glued shut. A heart broken that severely can’t sing for joy. And so he prayed to God to open his lips of praise. “Lord, restore to me the joy of my salvation. Let the bones You have crushed rejoice. My lips are glued shut – let them be forced upon once again by joy in You.”
NOTE:
Whether it is the agony that comes from sin, like in Ps.51, or the suffering of hard circumstances like running for your life in the desert, or the dryness of soul that comes from feeling distant from God; any of those can close your lips and shut up your praise and glue them closed. And only one thing can open those lips of praise – joy in the Lord.
The sad thing is, when our lips of praise are glued shut, we usually don’t stay completely silent. Our praises are silenced, but a lot of times our mouths keep running. God’s love is not the only thing that can open lips. Satan can pry them open too. When God opens your lips of praise He uses joy as the tool to do it. But when your lips of joy are glued shut Satan works to open your lips of complaining and bragging and bitterness. The tools he uses are things like anger, pride, selfishness, discontent.
So think about your lips often. What is the condition of your lips? Are your lips of praise glued shut because you do not have enough joy in the Lord? Are your lips of complaining wide open? Or your lips of anger? Or lips of folly? Lips can be a good memory cue. Whenever you notice your lips – your lips get chapped and you put on chap stick or you ladies put on lipstick, or you get a cole sore, or something reminds you of your lips, let that be a memory cue to remind you of the attribute of God’s worthiness to receive exuberant, loud, joyful, open-mouthed praise. Every time you think of your lips, ask yourself, “Are my lips of praise glued shut?” And if they are, pursue fellowship with God all the more until you have the joy it takes to force them open in praise.
Not within my immediate power
I hope you can see that praise is joy, and emotionless praise is not praise at all. That is a little unsettling for those of us who think we have all our ducks in a row in our walk with the Lord. Because the ability to praise does not lie within my immediate power. Saying the right words is within my power. Generating enough joy and delight in God for true praise to come out of my mouth is something that can only be done by a special work of God. Only He can reveal Himself to you and open your eyes and satisfy your soul such that you will be truly happy in Him.
Ps.22:25 you comes my praise in the great assembly
Praise is something offered by a man to God, and yet ultimately it is a gift that comes from God to man. The happiness behind true praise is not something that originates with us. You can’t make yourself that happy. First God has to gift great gifts. Then He has to open our eyes to the truth and beauty of that so that it causes joy. Then He has to give us the words to express that joy. It all comes from Him.
The purpose of joy is praise
Do you ever pray for happiness? If not, shame on you. I hope you are all praying for joy every day. But when you do that, make sure you have the right motive. David begged God for joy because he wanted to praise God. More than anything else he wanted to praise God, and he knew in order to do that he needed joy. That is the motive for seeking joy. The reason David wanted the joy of his salvation to return was so that his lips of praise would be opened back up.
Ps.106:4-5 Remember me, O LORD … 5 that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may share in the joy of your nation and join your inheritance in giving praise.
He asked for prosperity so that he could get joy so that he could praise!
Ps.73:28 I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.
The reason he sought to experience God as his protection was so his lips of praise will be opened up.
Don’t ever pray for happiness just because you want to feel good. That is not a high enough reason. Feeling good for the sake of feeling good is meaningless. What God wants is for us to read about the men and women who have seen His incredible goodness, and who have experienced it in such amazing measures that exuberant emotion forced exuberant shouts of praise out of their mouths, and then to say, “Oh God, I want to praise You like that, and so please, give me that kind of joy in You that I might praise You like that!”
I want to get so all my prayers for joy have this as their motive. When I am sick I want to pray for healing with this as my motive. When I pray for money, provision, guidance, protection, wisdom, peace, safe travel – anything that might help build my joy - I want my motive to be a burning desire to be a true praiser.
God is worthy of praise that is so much more joyful than the praises I usually offer. He is worthy to be shouted over.
He is worthy to be sung about. He is worthy to be danced over. He is worthy of praise! And I can’t get that happy in Him on my own.
It still involves resolve
This is not to say there is no discipline involved. I am not suggesting that it always has to be spontaneous or unplanned. Many times we read in the Old Testament that there were appointed people and appointed times for praise.
2 Chrn.29:30 King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to praise the LORD with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed their heads and worshiped.
Certain people were assigned the task of praising God at certain prescribed times. Just because something arises from an emotion does not mean it always has to be spontaneous. And just because it is not within you immediate power to make yourself happy in God, there are steps you can take to bring that about.
Joyful things can be planned – we do that all the time. We plan dates and vacations and recreation and all kinds of things that have no other purpose besides enjoyment. Enjoyment – especially enjoyment of a person, usually requires some planning. A man and wife might see each other around the house in the normal routine of life and not really be full of any special enjoyment of each other. But then they sit down and plan a weekend get-a-way together. They put thought into where they will go and what they will do; they spend money on it; they prepare themselves. The husband might go out and buy a card or some flowers. If you want to really enjoy a person, it takes some effort. It takes planning, it takes time, it takes energy, sometimes money.
So I am not saying that our praises have to be completely spontaneous or that praising God requires no self-discipline or effort. Sometimes it requires arduous effort. But nor is it true that the effort alone is sufficient. If a man plans a wonderful weekend get-a-way with his wife, but then does not enjoy her and takes no delight in her and has no desire for her all weekend, the mere fact that they went to a hotel means nothing. And so it is with praising God. We should plan, and work, and do all we can to put ourselves into a context in which we will be so full of delight in God that praise will come out of our mouths. But the planning and working and singing means nothing if the delight is not there. Praise is a function of joy.
Jas.5:13 Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.
Promises
We found in the last lesson that the joy comes when you learn God’s promises, become convinced of God’s promises, and see what’s wonderful about God’s promises. Know them, count on them and love them - those three things equal faith. And when you have faith in God’s great and precious promises, joy comes – joy that is powerful enough to generate true praise. We see that principle at least five times in this psalm.
Superior Love
In v.3 he is full of joy because he knows believes and loves God’s promise of superior love.
3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 Therefore I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
In those wonderful moments when it just really hits you what it means that God’s love is better than absolutely anything in life - when you find yourself longing for some joy that is not available (like a good job or a spouse or healing, etc.), and suddenly your eyes are opened to the amazing fact that while that particular blessing is not available right now, something far better is available to you right at this moment - when it hits you that the best thing there is is available to you at any moment; when it registers in your heart that you can count on His love always being far more satisfying and joy-producing than any sin or any earthly pleasure, and that will be true tomorrow and next year, day and night no matter where you are or what happens to you; when you eyes are opened to all that and God thrills your heart with that truth - that experience of God’s superior love will fill your heart up to overflowing with joy (even if you happen to be out in a miserable desert).
The food-likeness of God
In v.5 he is full of joy because he knows, believes, and loves God’s promise to satisfy his soul. Remember when we studied the attribute of God’s food-likeness? (part 3) God is like delicious, satisfying food.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
When your soul is dry and thirsty and you are filled with longing and nothing in this world is satisfying you - your husband is not satisfying you, your job is not satisfying you, your recreation is not satisfying you, life is not satisfying you; and you are having to wait for the Lord, and then you have one of those moments when your eyes are opened to the amazing truth of the food-likeness of God, the fact that His presence is guaranteed to be completely satisfying that will fill your soul up to overflowing so that joyful praise, the kind of praise God is worthy of, will be forced out of your mouth.
The help and care of God
In v.7 he is full of joy because he knows, believes, and loves God’s promise of help and tender care.
7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
No doubt shade was at a premium for David in the desert as he spent the long, hot days fleeing for is life. And I suppose when they found the rare grove of trees or some big rock a few of the men could try to get out of the burning sun for a little while. But it is interesting that David does not speak of the shade of a rock or tree. He speaks of the shade of the wings of a mother bird. That is a much different kind of shade.
A big rock does not intentionally give me it is shade. Its shade is accidental, and for that reason it is not ideally suited for me. I have to crouch behind it and accommodate myself to the form and placement of its shade. I feel no love for the rock, because it has no intention or love in providing me shade. But when the mother bird saves its baby from perishing in the desert heat by spreading the shade of its wings over that chick, the mother does that on purpose. She absorbs the heat and intentionally places herself in the direct blast of the burning rays so she can shelter her young.
She purposely casts the shadow in the right place to suit the needs of the chick. That is the kind of sheltering David experienced from God that caused him to sing with such joy.
All day long God does that for you, sheltering you from deadly peril. If He folded His wings of protection even for a moment you would be exposed to such peril you would wither and die. The enemy would destroy you in a heartbeat. But mostly we are oblivious to what He is doing and so we do not enjoy it, which means we pass up the opportunity to see and experience and enjoy God’s sheltering care.
We are like a child riding in a comfortable, heated car at 60 mph when it is 20 below zero outside. That little one has no idea what it would be like to be on a motorcycle and be exposed to the frigid, deadly air that would inflict terrible suffering and soon take her life if it were not for that windshield in front of her. A person has to have experienced some of that kind of cold to take pleasure in the shelter of the car and to take delight in having a windshield.
I bless God for the little bits of the cold of the spiritual realm that He has allowed me to experience - the little tiny disasters that have happened in my life that give me an inkling of what the cold that I am being sheltered from out there is really like. I praise God for the most painful things that have happened to me, because the memory of those is the only thing that gives me any idea of what I am being sheltered from right now.
Right now you are zooming through life at 60 mph and it is 100 below zero out, and most of us don’t even realize it because God has the heat turned up and there are no cracks in the windshield.
That is another memory cue I use. Whenever I notice the windshield of my car I try to let that remind me of the sheltering I am receiving at every moment from God’s protective care. I try to let it remind me of the millions of invisible, deadly perils that would bring total disaster into my life in an instant if it weren’t for the windshield of God’s protective love.
And when your eyes are opened to that attribute of God, and you experience it, and you have the sensation of being tenderly cared for and protected by Him, that will fill your soul to overflowing with joy in God.
Vindication and Restoration
In v.9 David is full of joy because he knows, believes, and loves God’s promise of vindication and restoration.
9 They who seek my life will be destroyed … 11 But the king will rejoice in God
One of the hardest things to deal with in life is when your enemies are too powerful for you, and you are being mistreated and can’t do anything about it. Most of us don’t have people trying to kill us all the time like David did, but we all know what it is like to be mistreated and to be powerless to defend ourselves. We all know what it is like to have someone lie about you, and to know that people are believing the lies and to be powerless to do anything about it. We have all experienced injustice. You get blamed for something you did not do, and no one believes you. Something gets taken away from you that shouldn’t have been taken away. You were in the right and your opponent was in the wrong, and no one can see it. In times like that, when the great and precious promise of final vindication and restoration hits you as a guaranteed reality - the fact that God will make all those things right - that will fill your soul to overflowing with joy that will burst out of your mouth in praise.
God’s supremacy
In v.11 he is full of joy because he knows, believes, and loves God’s promise of His own supremacy.
11 all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
People who swear by God’s name instead of by something else are people who believe God to be the ground of all certainty. The only thing that can guarantee that something will or won’t take place is God. Nothing else and no one else. Fate doesn’t determine anything. Luck doesn’t determine anything. Science doesn’t determine anything. Nature doesn’t determine anything. People don’t ultimately determine anything. (You can decide to go to the store, but if God decides you’re not going to the store then you’re not going to the store.) God is the ultimate determiner of everything.
So swearing by God’s name, in this context, means being a person who thinks of God as the ultimate determiner of reality. And people like that will be full of joy while liars will be left with nothing to say. (Which means that anyone who thinks anything else is a guarantee of certainty is a liar.)
Those times when it really hits home to you that God controls all things and that He can be utterly relied upon and nothing else can be, and this one who is the only one who is in control just happens to be someone you know and who dearly loves you, that will fill your soul to overflowing with joy that will pry your lips of praise wide open.
So David is out in the desert running for his life, he is dry and thirsty. And he doesn’t have one of these promises hit home in his heart – his eyes are opened to all five of them! No wonder he goes from misery in the desert to shouting for joy! He had had such wonderful past experiences with these attributes of God that just remembering these promises thrills his soul.
Recovering from Joylessness
So, what can you do about joylessness in your life? You see the exuberant praises of the psalmists in Scripture, and you say, “God, I want to praise You like that. You are worthy of that from me, and yet nothing seems to move my cold, dead heart.” What can be done about the problem of joylessness?
This entire study has been devoted to answering that question. So I hope you have some answers in your mind already. But let me just add three things from the principles we have seen in this study.
1. Use praise music
David repeatedly mentions singing in this psalm, and instrumental praise in other psalms. If we took a vote in the church and asked, “How many of you would support the elimination of all music from our worship service? No recorded music, no instruments, no singing – no music of any kind at all.” I’m sure the measure would be voted down unanimously. Why? Why should we have music in our worship? Here are some reasons people may suggest:
* Because of the example of Scripture. God’s people have always praised Him with music.
* Because God designed music to touch the affections, and we are to worship God with all our affections and emotions.
* Because gifted songwriters have put praises to music in excellent ways. They have spent countless hours thinking of words that lift our hearts to heaven, and have skillfully matched those words with music. I can’t just do that off the top of my head. We should take advantage of what God has given us through their gifts.
* Because there is music in heaven, where God is praised perfectly.
* Because God has commanded it in places like Eph.5:19.
Are any of those valid reasons for using music on Sunday mornings? If so, are they not just as compelling on Monday through Saturday? If all those arguments are enough to convince us to use music in our corporate worship, do they not apply just as powerfully to private worship? Are we going to be hypocrites the rest of the week? Shouldn’t we follow the example of Scripture for private worship? Don’t we want the help of music to touch our emotions so that we offer God praise from the heart in our private worship every day? Is God worthy of heartfelt worship only on Sundays? Should we offer God excellent, well-planned and orchestrated, beautiful and profound expressions of praise on Sundays but cheesy, hasty, distracted, makeshift worship during the week? Do we only care about emulating heavenly worship one out of 7 days? Do we not want to obey Eph.5:19 all the time? For all the same reasons we use music in the Sunday worship service, you should use music in your own personal worship. If music is designed by God to touch the emotions, how could we even think of leaving that out of the picture as we struggle to deepen our joy in God Monday through Saturday?
Up until about a year ago, for the previous 20 years or so of my life I didn’t listen to music. There isn’t any music on the radio that I like, and finding CDs that I like was too time consuming and too expensive. And I don’t really have time to listen to music anyway, because whenever I have free time I am usually listening to sermons, or going over memory verses or something like that. But when I started learning these principles about the crucial role of the affections in loving God, and I realize that God designed music to touch the affections I bought an MP3 player and built a daily worship time into my daily schedule just like my daily prayer time and time in the Word. I commend this to you. I am not talking about having music going in the background for entertainment. I am talking about intentional worship.
You can download pretty much any song from the Internet from Walmart.com for 88 cents. God has given us a great gift with MP3 players. I have all my favorite worship songs and hymns on my MP3 player, as well as a good supply of sermons from guys like John Piper and John MacArthur (which are free on the Internet). Use music to help yourself take delight in God every day.
2. Diagnose the problem of joylessness correctly
One of the best things we can do when we find ourselves in the desert without proper joy is to simply realize that what we need is more of God and not more of anything else. Realize that when you lack joy it is not because of your kids, it is not because of your wife, it is not because of your job, it is not because of your health, it is not because of what’s going on at school, it is not because of your circumstances. It is because you are not experiencing the satisfying, joy-producing feast of fellowship with God and being in His presence and experiencing His love that is better than life. When you have the symptom of joylessness, realize that probably at least one of the three elements of faith is missing in your life. Either you are not aware enough of God’s promises, or you are not convinced enough of them, or you do not love them enough.
I think the thing that has helped me with joy more than anything else has been to just realize that it is always available, regardless of circumstances. Any time I feel down, or discouraged, or depressed, or unhappy, or irritated, or discontented, or anything but joyful; I ask myself this question: “Why is the presence of God not enough for me right now?” Asking that question has done more to solve those problems in my life than any other single thing this past year. Because when I ask that question, it becomes obvious that if I were experiencing the presence of God, it would be enough to satisfy me. Which means if I am not satisfied, I am not experiencing His presence. And yet (and this is the great part) His presence is available to me at any time!
And so there is no reason why I can’t be full of joy all the time. I realize that statement brings up a big question for any thoughtful Christian: “What about sorrow? Is not sorrow and grieving and sadness sometimes appropriate? Wasn’t Jesus grieved and sad and angry sometimes?” Yes, He was. Even the Holy Spirit is grieved at times. And sorrow is appropriate. If you don’t have sorrow when you are supposed to have sorrow, you are in sin! We should be grieved, for example, when we see evil. Grief is a part of this life by God’s design.
1 Pe.1:6 now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
In the Greek it literally says, “It is necessary that you suffering grief in al kinds of trials.” It is necessary to suffer grief. The successful, victorious Christian life is not a life where there is never any grief or sorrow. It is, however, a life of constant joy. That is not a contradiction. They go together. Notice the rest of what Peter says in that passage. He talks about being shielded by God’s power, and then he says…
1 Pe.1:6-8 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith … may result in praise
8 even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy
You have two things going on at the same time – grief and great rejoicing with inexpressible and glorious joy. Yes, we suffer terrible, heart-wrenching sorrow and grief in this life. But at the same time we experience a joy that is deeper and wider and more profound than our grief. That is what Paul was talking about in 2 Cor.6:10 when he said we are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
Suffering is an important key to joy. Which brings us to the third way to fight joylessness.
3. Use your suffering.
None of us are as moved by God’s promises as we should be. None of us has the joy that we really ought to have when we read the great and precious promises of God. We all suffer from defective affections – emotions that are not as excited as they should be about God. How can you change that? One of the most powerful ways to really learn to love His promises is suffering.
All my life I have read promises about God never leaving me and never forsaking me. But it was hard for that to really touch my affections in any great way until the day came when I had a huge, painful crisis in my life and I was abandoned and rejected my many of my dearest friends. People who I thought were some of the godliest people I knew would not even talk to me. When that happened, even though I had other friends who did not abandon me, still I felt very alone.
And on top of that I was being told by numerous people that God had rejected me, and the only reason I thought otherwise was because of my own self-deception. And I started to believe them. They convinced me that I was so self-deceived I had just tricked myself into thinking I had faith in God, when really I did not. And at that time I felt utterly alone – a kind of aloneness that I can’t even put into words.
And it was at that time, in the solitude of my own prayer room, through the tears of the most painful anguish I have ever experienced in my life, God came to me. And He reassured me and He showed me His promises. He showed me that it is impossible to desire to seek Him but to be unable to do so because of self-deception. He showed me from His Word that He would never let that happen, because He is not like that.
And at that moment, those promises that had no effect on my emotions at all before, brought me to the most profound tears of joy I have ever had. For quite a while after that I could not even read or quote Ps.103:13 without tears of joy.
There are some things in the Christian life that only come through intense suffering. If someone would have told me that windshield illustration earlier in my life, it probably would not have meant much to me. But after the disaster that I went through a couple years ago, I have gotten a little taste of how horrible disaster can really be. And so now the realization that I am being shielded from disaster really does cause great joy in my heart.
It was a big prayer for David to say to God, “Let the bones You have crushed rejoice.” That is a huge request, right? To go from the pit of despair to heartfelt rejoicing? That was a big prayer, but I think it is an even a bigger prayer to say, “Father, let the bones You haven’t crushed rejoice.” It is hard to really rejoice when you have not been crushed recently. When things are just sailing along smoothly we are so prone to forget God, and assign all the good that is happening to circumstances. And we are so quick to forget how much we are being shielded and protected and redeemed from. And that handcuffs your spirit is ability to rejoice in God.
I am not suggesting that you go out and look for suffering. Let God take care of how much suffering you have. But I will say this – when suffering does come, don’t waste it. There is so much potential to train the affections when God carries you through suffering. There are priceless treasures in the Christian life that only come through painful suffering, so when you do suffer, don’t ever let it go to waste.
