I found the joy of the Lord in the strangest of places. I have seen God all over the world, but the place I felt Him moving the most in my heart was on a series of car journeys commuting to and from a lackluster job. Why is it when you don't have many of your wants, when you're uncomfortable, that God emerges in a way you've never seen Him before?
We argue that God is harder to find these days, and we're less joyful, but after visiting places like Africa, I'm convinced that perhaps we're looking in the wrong places.
While I suppose I always knew God was with me wherever I went, God needed to take the distractions away one by one to show me what robbed me of His joy and the power I had in Christ to change the only certainty I could control- my attitude. Once I finally chose to release control out of my clenched fists and handed it to God, most of my unhappy circumstances didn't change, but my heart did.
In the simplest of ways, just as humbly as He appeared at birth, He invites His spirit to wash over us, to remind us what joy really is...and it's not in our stuff, or our jobs, or our homes or even in the church, it's solely in Him.
We look for Him in these places, but we're knocking on the wrong doors. Sometimes we look for happiness or fulfillment or even purpose everywhere but where God should be- in us, His children. The irony is, I literally looked all over the world for Him and it took God taking away the home, the diamond ring, the car, the clothes, the make-up, the stuff, the comfort levels... setting aside all the distractions, for me to realize that He was with me all along.
That idea is freeing and empowering because it's more than a mere passing thought in my head. I now know in my heart that my sincerest joy is not in a career, or a home or in activities or possessions, it's in God who is my everything: my rock, my joy, my comfort, my friend, my savior. The most beautiful part of all is that His promises and love are unconditional and unchanging, no matter the season of my life or where in the world I go.
