Buoyant Joy

Used with Permission by April White

http://redchairmoments.com/buoyant-joy/

 

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” 

(Hebrews 10:23)

Bass boats skim across the lake, a rooster tail of water rockets into the air. Spring yawns as petioles stretch open uncurling their true purpose. The leaves are on full display today narrowing my view of the main channel. In the center of my view, a “No Wake” buoy bobs as the bass boats disturb its quiet resting place.

This buoyant channel maker captivates my attention. It never sinks. Waves toss the buoy to and fro kissing the water,
always returning to its upright position.

“Joy is not mere happiness. Nor does joy spring from a life of ease, comfort, or peaceful circumstances. Joy is the soul’s buoyant response to a God of promise, presence, and power.”

–Susan Lenzkes

Buoy: noun/  a floating object anchored in water to mark something (as a channel)
Buoy: verb/ to mark by a buoy, to keep afloat, to raise the spirits of
Buoyancy: noun/ the power of a fluid to exert an upward force on a body placed in it, resilience of spirit.

Buoyant joy is a by-product of resilient faith.

It does not guarantee the absence of a storm; rather it guarantees the ability to bounce back.

A buoy is anchored in water with the purpose of marking the main channel. Our faith and joy are anchored to His living water.  We serve as channel markers, guiding those in the midst of the storm to stay on course, encouraging others as we bob along.

Even though thick fog impedes my future, I know the One to whom I’m anchored. Knowing I will bounce back because He is the God over the storm assures me “It is well with my soul.”

~April Dawn White
 

Photos courtesy of author and Pixabay

Five Lessons from Elisabeth Elliott

Used by permission

November 5, 2015 by Susie Hawkins 8 Comments

Few women have had an impact on the kingdom of God as has Elisabeth Elliot. Her remarkable insights and words of wisdom continue to shape us, even after her death and years of illness. Here are just five truths I have gleaned from her devotional book “A Lamp for My Feet.” Published in 1985, it remains on my list of books I regularly re-read.

“Thy List Be Done” – His List, Not Mine

Women always have multiple lists going – shopping needs, errands to be run, answering emails or correspondence, calls to be made, prayer lists, etc. Inevitably, we will have interruptions and won’t accomplish what we hoped. The lists get longer instead of shorter! Elisabeth experienced that frustration on more than one occasion and wrote, “Because God is my sovereign Lord, I was not worried. He manages perfectly day and night, year in and year out, the movements of the starts, the wheeling of the planets, the staggering coordination of events that goes on on the molecular level in order to hold things together. There’s no doubt that He can manage the timing of days and weeks. So I can pray in confidence, ‘Thy list, not mine, be done.'”

“Wastelands”- Don’t Look for Shortcuts

At some time we all experience “dry, fruitless, lonely places.”  Using Exodus 13:17, Elisabeth points out that these times are not wasted for the Christian. “God did not guide them by the road towards the Philistines, although that was the shortest….God intentionally took them by way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. “If they had gone their own way, they would have missed the deliverance from Egypt’s chariots when the sea was rolled back. Lets not ask for shortcuts. Let’s keep alert for the wonders our Guide will show us in the wilderness.”

“Volunteer Slaves” – Serving with Joy

Our service to Christ is in the sense of a volunteer slave, or a servant who loves her master with all her heart. It is not “forced labor,” but the “purest joy when it is most unobserved, most unself-conscious, most simple, most freely offered.” Don’t minimize the service in small acts – cooking a meal, consoling a discouraged friend, forgiving a failure. “Let me not imagine that my love for You is very great if I am unwilling to do for human being something very small.” Ouch.

“Apportioned Limitation” – Accepting Your Field of Service

God sets limitations on “the scope of our work”, in that He has appointed us to a certain “sphere”. “We will keep to the limits God has apportioned us” (2 Cor. 10:13). Jesus did that – becoming a baby, a growing child, an adolescent, a man, each stage “bounded by its peculiar strictures, yet each offering adequate scope in which to glorify His Father.” God is glorified when we work in the place He has set us. “Let me not covet another’s place or work or glory”

“First Be Quiet” – Learning Silence

“Our hectic lives involve many changes, and changes require decisions, and decisions must often be made in the midst of a multitude of confusions.” Instead of constantly asking others’ advice, Elisabeth suggests practicing quietness. She points out how Jesus deliberately sought solitude during the non-stop days of His ministry. “The more hectic our lives become, the more necessary is this quietness.” When it is not possible to get away to a place of solitude to pray for a day, then “do not speak about the decision to anyone but God for forty eight hours at least. Just hold it before Him alone. Keep your mouth shut for two days. Pray. Listen. Seek his counsel.” Or this, “Sit before Him for fifteen consecutive minutes in silence, focusing … on Psalm 86:11, ‘Guide Me, O Lord…”

What have you learned from Elisabeth?

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Filed Under: Spiritual Growth

Susie Hawkins

Susie lives in Dallas, TX with her husband OS Hawkins. She is the author of "From One Ministry Wife to Another: Honest Conversations on Connections in Ministry". She has 2 daughters and 6 grandchildren, keeping her life full of craziness and joy.

Joy

by Michelle Gill  www.michellegill.us
 

Joy is one thing that I do not see much of, even in those who know Jesus.  I think about it a lot,  wondering why joy is missing.  I don't know if there is one answer but I know the One Who is Joy.  The joy of the Lord is my strength.  I am not sure I ever understood the meaning before, as I do now.   If I diagram the sentence out...
Joy is what?  Strength
Whose joy?  The Lord's
Whose strength?  Mine

Today I opened the outside door in what used to be my living room, the cool rainy breeze struck my face and I remembered when, in the dead of winter, I had to keep that door cracked because I could not breath.  I could physically breath but I felt like I couldn't after a tragedy.  I kept a window or door cracked for a year.  It was during this period I understood.
"I have heard You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You."  Job 42:5

"In His presence is fullness of joy," said David.  I was forced into His presence.  I'm not sure I would have made the same choices had I not had a daughter.  I chose His presence because I felt I had no other choice.  First His peace would come and cover me like a fleece blanket.  Then He would lay down His joy inside me.  It made no natural sense.  It's hard to understand or explain.  I felt an excitement for my life even though my circumstances told me that my life was over.  I felt a strong security even though all that was secure, even what I thought of God, was pulled out from under me.  I would sit and wait for His Spirit at times when another day seemed impossible.

He is Spirit and we worship Him in Spirit.  You don't know where the wind comes from or which way it blows but You know when it's blowing.

He did not make me strong.  He gives me His joy which gives me strength.  I can now testify of Him and His joy that is able to hold you through anything.  He is able to cause you to laugh when you forgot how.  You are His and a testimony of Him.  I testify of His desire for rebirth in whatever has been lost in your life.  I have not only heard but now my eye has seen.

In everyday life when hormones are unbalanced and you just wake up out of sorts, His presence is still able to take over.  When you are discouraged that a promise seems to never come for you, wait, listen to His voice and allow Him to fill you with His hope.  Whatever is missing for you, for me it was joy, allow His to rest in you.  The living wind is real that flows always, wake or sleep, good times or bad, in peace or turmoil.  Feel the breeze?  Your face, your life shows others Who He is, "in Him we live and move and have our being."  (Acts 17:28, Eph. 1:23)
 

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
    in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me;
    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
    my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
    or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16: 7-11