Joy 2-The Promise of Joy, episode 104

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal podcast. And also help and hope for your own life journey. Don't forget to make a note of anything you want to try to apply. Joy, my friend and neighbor, always brings joy into my life. She was aptly named Joy. She told me God gave her a joyful surprise this morning. She was talking with him this morning, sitting next to one of her very many plants.

0:40 She noticed there were little trees beginning to grow in a pot that was holding some other plant. And then she remembered that months ago, she had put three avocado seeds in that plant to see what would happen, then totally forgotten about it. And this morning, she was surprised by Joy as she saw the new avocado life. Sometimes you don't know what God is growing, but you can find joy in it if you look for it. I don't think my reaction to the growing avocado trees would be Joy, though maybe a calmer response of a happy surprise.

1:24 I might have Joy if any orchids that I have had would ever live. But Joy took my latest orchid and is trying to restore it. Joy is her natural response. Everyone in our whole neighborhood knows Joy. And they love to get to talk to her because she just exudes joy all the time. When you love a prodigal, though, you may find Joy is in scarce supply. Your surprises when you have a prodigal are usually not happy surprises.

2:06 They're usually, oh no, not again. Oh no, not that. I believe our God wants Joy to be our normal experience. Is that even possible? Well, Joy is one of God's favorite topics. It's a gift that he loves to give us. Jumping off from our theme verse last week, James 1-2, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. Every time I read that, it's just like, okay, but that sounds almost impossible.

2:50 But God has a lot to say about Joy. So we're going to just look at some of the promises, the thoughts of Joy that God shares with us. First, some verses from the Old Testament. In Isaiah 61, verses 1-3, Isaiah tells us, The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and even the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

4:00 Can't you hear that? He says, I'm going to give them a crown of beauty instead of the ashes of the ruined life or abandoned life that we experience with the prodigal sometime, or the oil of joy instead of mourning. I know a lot of people with prodigals who have left, who have said so long and they haven't heard from them in weeks, months, even years. And that's causing great mourning, which makes sense. Of course, they're mourning. But God says, I'm going to give you the oil of joy instead of that mourning.

4:43 And certainly any of us with our loved one is in jail or making some really bad choices, addicted, lots of things that give us a spirit of despair. And he says, I'm going to give you a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. I could spend a lot of time on those verses, but we'll go on to some others. Have you experienced the oil of joy to overcome your mourning and despair? It is available. I think you could ask God for it.

5:27 Psalm 32, 11 says, Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones. Shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. Says, as you are seeking him and letting him fill you and be with you and be working in your life, he says, there's going to be joy for you. I'm sure that you have shouted for joy when something good happens, when a loved one returns home or just gets put on probation instead of sent to prison, or goes to rehab or a treatment program.

6:09 Yeah, that causes some joy for you that there's hope for change. Can you in any circumstance look for the good that God is doing, even in a hard situation? Psalm 118, 24 says, This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. That's this day right now. It's every day. God made each day and he knows what's going to happen. And he says, rejoice and be glad in the fact that God is with you in this day.

6:52 One of my favorites is in Zephaniah 317. For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. God loves you and is crazy about you and takes delight in you. With his love, he will calm all your fears. Have you asked him to calm your fears? He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. God is singing a joyful love song over you. And he's doing the same for your loved one.

7:33 A joyful love song. Does that give you hope and maybe a little joy? So here are a few verses from the New Testament too. Luke 2 10 and this is where the joy comes from. The angels said to them, the shepherds, do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. The birth of Jesus was a promise of great joy. He is the source of our joy. And because we have him, Paul could say in Philippians 4, always, always, always be full of joy in the Lord.

8:25 I say it again, rejoice. Always? Can you do that always? Well, I guess he thinks we can. We're going to keep moving toward it. 1 Thessalonians 5 16 says the same thing, rejoice always. It's a choice that we make, but we have the ability to make that choice because there is joy available to us and God will give us what we need. In Acts 2 28, Luke wrote this and he says about God, you have made known to me the paths of life.

9:13 You will fill me with joy in your presence. So the longer you live, the more you discover that your life includes some events you wouldn't choose. But God says he will fill us with joy in his presence, no matter where the path leads. So I think part of that is hanging with him really close to be in his presence. And that's often in his word. It can be with others who know him and just talking to him. I talk to him every time I'm driving and so far I haven't had an accident.

9:54 Romans 12 12 says be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer. So faithful in prayer, we can keep talking to the Lord. That's what prayer is, you know, it's talking to God and listening to God. We can tell him anything we want. We can lament all the pain that we've experienced. We can say how sad we are, how hurt we are, how fearful we are. But we can also tell him that we're trusting him and that we believe that he has something that's going to help us have joy even in this hard journey.

10:41 Next week, I'm going to cover some of the realities of the battle for joy. Because you know, we have an enemy and one of his main jobs is to steal our joy. And we can defeat him. And we'll talk about that next week. And we'll also talk about some practices that can be your pathway to joy. If you're not finding it easy to get on a pathway to joy, I hope we'll be able to help you on that next week. So I want to just ask you to do something here. I'm going to ask a few questions and you just answer them in your mind, okay?

11:24 I'm not going to give you much time because it would be a lot of, you know, dead air. So think of something recently that's given you joy, even just a little. What about it made you joyful? What was your response to the feeling of joy? Did you desire or try to capture it or repeat it so that you could experience more joy? Any kind of place, anything in your life. Maybe it's an avocado plant growing. Think of something in your relationship with your prodigal that has given you joy or hope or thankfulness.

12:12 Did that little bit or maybe if you're, well, maybe it was a lot. Often it's a little. Did that little bit give you joy? Why? Was it precipitated entirely by your loved one or did you say or do something to cause it? What was your response when some interaction with your loved one brought a little joy? Did you desire or try to capture it or repeat it? Some of you may be like my friend, Joy, and you see joy in almost everything.

12:53 Some of you may rarely see joy, but rather mostly see the problems, and most of us fall somewhere in between. But God offers, he even promises joy. It is a gift. But as in all gifts, it only becomes ours as we accept it. And next week, we'll look at some very practical ways to make joy a consistent reality for us. So a couple of thought questions as we close. Do you believe it's possible to experience joy on this prodigal wilderness journey?

13:36 Was there one thought you had as we listened, especially to the word of God, or answered the questions I just asked you that could help you have joy today? Be sure to listen to the songs in the show notes and invite a friend who has a prodigal to be part of Prayer for Prodigal Day on June 2nd. God bless you.