A few notes from the blog
1. I found powerful wisdom and perspective in Darrel's words about the enemy and evil - Evil wants to divert attention, distract devotion, and destroy confidence that the father of Jesus is good. "Evil one’s goal is to doubt the goodness of God. Put suspicion in Eve’s soul that God is withholding what she needs."
2. Love the positioning of Joy as foundational to life -- "Joy is like oxygen. Without joy life is sucked out of you. "
3. Fully pumped on his defining of the word Joy -- Here is the surprising thing about joy. It is always a surprise. The root of “Cara” is surprise. When grace breaks through we are surprised, give thanks, and experience joy. I loved his explanation because sometimes I think my marriage is joyful and fun because I have very little short term, medium term, or long term memory of life with Sarah. Part of our marriage adventure for me is waking up each day into new mysteries of the covenant and seeing life through Sarah's eyes. Love that. The movie 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler comes to mind when I think of Darrel's explanation of joy and contemplate the "dwelling in the moment" joy I find in marriage.
4. Love his positioning of joy as defiant and tying the defiant nature of joy to facts about God and His Kingdom Come -- Nevertheless there is a God. This God is on the throne. This God is good all the time. Faithful all the time. Working out his purpose. God is for us all the time. God became one of us. Jesus died for us and gave his life for us. He died and conquered the grave. He is lord and has the last word. No one can snatch us out o f his hand. He commands my destiny from life’s first cry to the grave.
Off to the E.R. -- again, please pray. Can't go into detail but our friends already needed some seriously defiant joy in their lives. Pray that God does what God does in this circumstance because our friends already have had a lot of oxygen squeezed out of their souls over the last few months.
Thanks,
Steve
Praying, Steve!
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