The Eight O’Clock
News December December 2013 2013
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Surprised by Joy I am sure you’d agree that as a child, Christmas took forever to come around? The anticipation of that longed for surprise to be received was special and to be cherished. In this fast-paced era, things seemed to have changed—we’ve hardly packed away the Christmas decorations and the Nativity Scene when we’re unpacking them again! Some people therefore may say, Christmas is for children and they vicariously delight in the season by watching the surprise on children’s faces while at the same time feeling bored or jaded inside. ‘Satisfaction of desires is a reliable source of happiness but it does not add to a sense of meaning.’ This I read in a New Era Leadership Blog; ‘Happiness is about the present; meaning is about linking the past, the present and the future in a coherent story. Although we look for happiness, we don’t want it at the cost of meaning. Ultimately we need purpose and meaning to provide stability in life.’ So, to pardon the pun at this time of giving gifts, happiness may be about the present but how can this be transformed to ‘joy’ which contributes to meaning and sustains us far beyond the Festive Season? In his book, Surprised by Joy, CS Lewis describes three different experiences that engendered within him a feeling that surpassed happiness—he called the feeling ‘Joy’ and described it as a desire which in itself was more desirable than any other satisfaction: ‘I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic—the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.’ Lewis was indeed ‘surprised by joy’ when he crossed the threshold from atheist to Christian. So, how do we recapture the joy that we December 2013 Eight O’Clock News
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experienced when we first gave our lives to Him? Perhaps, a message from Derek Prince entitled Thanksgiving, Praise and Worship may help. ‘Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him; and bless His name.’ (Psalm 100:4.) ‘There are two stages of access to God. The first is through the gates, the second is through His courts. The gates give you admission to the courts, and the courts give you access to the actual house of God. But you can’t get into them except by the prescribed route which is His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise. The first step of access to God is thanksgiving, the second is praise. A person has no close access to God unless such a person comes the prescribed way with thanksgiving and praise. Some of you may pray at times and feel you’re a long way from God. Quite possibly the reason is that you’re not coming by the prescribed route. You can stand outside the courts and shout at God, and He’ll hear you and He’ll have mercy on you. But you don’t have access to Him unless you come with thanksgiving and praise. You may say: Well, I really don’t have anything for which to thank God. Why should I thank Him? Things are going wrong—my life is all in a state of turmoil. The psalmist has given you three answers in verse 5. He says: ‘Be thankful to Him; and bless His name. For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.’ Those three things are always true. No matter how you feel, no matter what your circumstances are, these things never change. The Lord is always good, His mercy is everlasting, His truth endures to all generations. So you have three permanent, unchanging reasons for thanking God. Don’t focus on your feelings, don’t focus on your situation—focus on these eternal, unchanging aspects of God’s nature and of His dealings with us. And, you will be thanking God ceaselessly. We all have so much for which to thank God. Be Surprised by Joy—Joy to the World, the Lord has come! - Cheryl Anderson