Now I know what you are thinking after reading the title. ‘Oh great, another fantasy thought, feel good Christian message that makes no difference to my tomorrow morning.’ Something that sounds theoretically glamorous but practically naïve. Something that’s attainable for the practicing monk but unrealistic for the full-time father working three jobs to keep his family afloat.
While I can understand some will have this preconception, I would dare you to read on. Some of you will have felt something arise in you as you clicked on this title to read and again, I dare you to read on. For others, you may have just stumbled your way here and again, I dare you to read on. See as much as this sounds like a plea to read this blog it’s actually an acknowledgement that everyone who reads Jesus’ words are likely to come at it from a slightly different angle compared to others. So in some way the preconceptions are right. For some this message will have little to no bearing. But for the other it might just be the catalyst that fans into flame the hunger that is already growing. My prayer is that Jesus speaks to you wherever you are at when reading this.
It was a dark January night coming late into the evening on the lead up to the dreaded transfer test (11 plus if you’re old) that most will have experienced. Many are familiar with the process. Practice paper after practice paper upon class upon class all building up to these couple papers that appear to ‘decide your destiny’ at that stage. I remember on this night finishing up with the brain numbing riddle of how many apples will Alice have once she does this or does that. Whilst these questions may aid children’s education (if so, I repent for my distain) I needed something to take my mind off this big focus that many children experience.
Picking up the Bible I aimlessly started to lottery pick something that would serve as a lifeline. Don’t lie. We’ve all done it. But hallelujah! God still uses our lazy ‘vending machine like’ faith as an opportunity to connect with His people. And it’s from this vending machine approach that pure gold was found in Psalm 16:8:
"I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
It’s a piece of scripture that at the time I never knew would be a place where I still find myself regularly camping around to this day and probably will do in the future. Nevertheless this anecdote isn’t just for reminiscent purposes. Since the discovery of this verse the idea of being ‘shaken’ has stirred up questions. Questions that probe my idea of how to journey my life in all seasons.
Consequently after reading this verse many times over, the following questions surfaced. Had David had a revelation in this moment that led him to the conclusion that there is a way to navigate life without being shaken? Is there a way for us to journey the challenging times in our lives today but remain unshaken?
See we already know that the winds of adversity blow a gale in our life. That the prospect of land sliding under the pressure of culture is ever-present. In other words, the opportunity to be shaken to our core in our lives always seems to be there. But David concludes that despite anything that will come against him, “I will not be shaken.” Unlike the tedious riddle in the transfer test, the answer to this question seems to be in plain sight. Keeping your ‘eyes always on the Lord’ and having him at your ‘right hand’. I could finish the blog there and there alone. But although this verse has a sweet sense of simplicity about it, I struggle to understand what this actually looks like for me today.
Thank goodness culture can help though… (insert sigh)
As with most of its trends, the landscape usually changes in terms of how things are viewed. For example, when we take this idea of being shaken in our lives, there has been a turbulent wave from distain to appraisal. An example of this could be the ‘the men who said no’ in 1916 who refused to go to World War I who believed it was wrong to kill. I can imagine they felt largely shaken with the abuse they received during that time. Culture called it ‘weakness’ while those men felt a moral conviction to refrain from killing. Let’s fast forward a century to what happens when someone opens up about a shakeable time they are going through. For example, the athlete who has been suffering panic attacks who finally decides to open up to receive the help needed. They are praised in culture for heroic bravery rather than showing weakness. We all know that this wouldn’t have gone down well at all years ago with phrases such as ‘Man up’ being proscribed as the treatment deemed necessary. Culture is turbulent!
While as Christians we are aware of the fact that although we are so very in this world, we are equally as aware that we are most certainly not of this world (John 15:19). Therefore we must let the word of God be the lamp that guides our steps and burns away the foggy haze of cultural confusion. It’s from this backdrop that we can begin to try and wrap our heads around the whole idea of this blog based off James 1:2-3:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance”.
Here James tells us there is a joy available in our time of trouble for the moments that feel like we are being shaken. The type of joy that Jesus knew of coming up to His crucifixion, “for it was for that joy set before him that he endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).” In other words there was a joy that sustained Jesus in an extremely shakeable moment.
An unshakeable joy.
Nevertheless, this joy isn’t available for just Jesus but also for those who He dwells in today. It can be understandable to think that of course Jesus could have joy because He is God, however He was equally a human. And just as James calls for us to comprehend our shakeable moments as pure joy, Jesus equally commanded
His followers to do the same.
It's in John 16 where we find an example of Jesus walking the disciples through a windy road from sheer confusion to comforting clarity. This passage is set within the context of Jesus revealing the great ‘trials of many kinds’ they would face as He would be crucified. He explains that their grief will be turned to wonderful joy. That they will have initial sorrow but will later rejoice. Finally, they will ask using Jesus’ name and will have abundant joy.
We read on to understand that the disciples fail to comprehend the things they were being told and in a way, I get it. See the phrase often used in our Christian circles when regarding the teachings from Jesus is ‘counter cultural’. But as we established earlier looking through the lens of culture, the idea of carrying joy in crap circumstances doesn’t fit logically in our thinking. That the idea that there is a better story to be told to the person who has been in a cycle of unemployment than just ‘I feel bad for them’ seems strange. Or to the person with emotional trauma from relationship breakdown who is desperate to hear something more than ‘I’ll be thinking of you’.
Hear my heart in this.
These things are not bad things to say in tough moments. In fact they are comforting and needed and I think come from that same compassion that Jesus felt when He encountered broken situations. But when we look at those examples from a wider perspective, the idea that Jesus offers us something more in our moments of trial actually becomes increasingly more logical. We need something more than phrases of comfort to sustain us through challenging times.
We long for an unshakable joy that remains unfussed by what’s going on around it. An ever-present, ever consistent, perseverant joy for the good, the bad, and the ugly. So what did Jesus offer His disciples in their shakeable moment? John 16:22:
"So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”
He gave them the type of treasure that when found is worth selling everything for, but wrapped in reality. As already said in the previous blog (find ‘The Continual Feast’), unfortunately Jesus doesn’t do escapism. Just like Jesus said to them that there will be tricky things they come up against, and James saying we will face trials of many kinds, the gold always seems to come with reality.
But it’s no bad thing. In fact it’s God’s mercy that we get to taste the things of the kingdom this side of eternity. What accompanies the reality in both Jesus’ and James’s message? “Consider it pure Joy” and “no one will take away that joy.” This is the treasure. And with buying most things, it comes with a cost. This cost looks like your understanding, your feelings, your predetermined idea of what it is meant to look like. The disciples paid this cost in John 16 in this example we are looking at. John 16:30:
"Now we understand that you know everything, and there’s no need to question you.”
You might read this and think “Dan you’ve been rambling on for too long about how we don’t really understand at times, but it says here that they understood?” True. However, their understanding had one slight difference.
Their understanding was solely based on the fact of who they were dealing with rather than what they could comprehend.
You could suggest from reading this verse that they might have not even caught the whole picture that Jesus was painting. But just like us in our circumstances that are challenging, the disciples decide to focus their understanding based on the person of Jesus rather than just searching for what He can give them.
What’s my point? Just forget trying to catch the message Jesus wants to give His people? Become lazy in our diligence to understanding the scriptures? A categoric no.
Rather, sometimes it’s more important knowing who you’re in the boat in the storm with first, and keep the questions for later. The disciples take it a step further saying, “there’s no need to question you.” If we want to grasp the unshakable joy Jesus abundantly gives, then it will cost us our self-given right to know it all. It’s the yes before the known.
For now, let us take a pause in this moment to reorient ourselves around the revelation I feel is available for us in the here and now. Letting the reality of God’s joy penetrate the walls of our heart.
While this is a matter that requires a personal response, I am equally aware of the potential of adopting an overindulgent individualistic approach.
See a conviction for writing something like this came from an external realisation. A realisation that if we are to people of God’s presence, then we must be people of joy. It’s a righteous responsibility. Don’t let that spiral you round the cycle of striving or pressure to perform. Rather let holy urgency stir in you to offer something more substantial than sympathetic thinking to others. See what you’ll find is that when the joy of the Lord is burning within you, it is infectious to those around you. They can’t help but be affected by it.
But it will only start within you and often in my experience as an initial flicker that requires careful cultivating. With tender care like that of camper in the forest starting their campfire. Meticulously placing the kindling bit by bit as building blocks to establish the foundation flame for a bigger blaze. It’s a consistent process that requires a degree of longevity to avoid stifling the flicker. Be assured though, log by log, fire to fire, tree to tree, it will spread far and wide and above and beyond anything that could be expected.
It is time that the people of God in this day return to their strength that was always meant to be found in the joy of the Lord in shakeable moments. Nehemiah puts it this way, “for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). And as this happens watch how it invades those around who’s flicker which has appeared to die, start to alight once more.
It’s our righteous responsibility to offer those afflicted around us a better story than what they know. A joy that has felt foreign for far too long and for some has yet to even be tasted. People who claim to carry His presence must be a people marked by His joy. As CS Lewis wrote:
“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
If you have managed to read this far then firstly well done for reading my rambling. But secondly, you might be wondering how this unshakable joy can be grasped and attained. Well recentring ourselves back to John 16, the answer is eventually modelled by the disciples.
They offer the sacrifice of relinquishing their understanding. The disciples came to the acceptance that Jesus knowing was enough for their knowing. With Jesus declaring himself as the Shepard for us His sheep, we can rest assured that He will ultimately know best. But getting to that place requires a posture of humility that only He can bring us to. Will power is not enough for this kingdom lifestyle. It is sustained by the tasting and seeing encounters that breaks our pride and brings us back to humble surrender.
From this place we can begin to become increasingly receptive to the voice of God. We can see that the disciples were receptive to what Jesus said despite struggling at first to comprehend the events that would follow. While the disciples receptiveness was exercised on a physical level by hearing the words of Jesus on that day, I’d like to suggest that this was accompanied by a receptiveness within their hearts. Jesus is very clear that it is one thing to hear His words literally, but another to let them shape our souls. And if we want to catch this unshakable joy, we will have to come under what He is saying over what we would prefer Him to say.
To finish I would like to leave you with a verse that has been within the John 16 journey we have been on and how we can pray through it. John 16:24:
"Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”
In the Greek (originally written in) the highlighted section can be understood as “to take and lay hold of the realisation of God’s grace.” This is a fitting summary of everything we have attempted to cover for what carrying joy through shakeable times looks like. That in those painful times we can ask the Holy Spirit, ‘Help me to grasp a fuller picture of God’s grace that I may not be shaken.’ His desire is for us to be people who carry His unshakable joy.
"To take and lay hold of the realisation of God’s grace.”
Prayer
Lord, it is clear my life consists of both good and not so good moments.
Whilst the opportunity to be shaken remain at large, I thank you first and foremost for your unshakable nature, but also for the unshakable joy you and your disciples learned to lay hold of in times of great trouble.
Would you teach me how to come into a greater realisation of the abundant grace you give, that it may rub off on those around me. Let your people be marked by your joy.
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