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Joy is knowing that I am valuable to someone else, that they cherish me and are glad to be with me no matter what is going on in my life.
Pride is a measurement of the emptiness that I feel inside. When I do not feel that I am valuable to someone else then I produce pride to fill the void. That pride can either be in the form of self-pity or of arrogance – both are forms of the same thing. The real problem is the lack of a sense of real value inside and that can only be filled effectively from the outside. When I try to fill it from myself it is pride.
Pride is an indicator of how much I believe Satan's lies about how much God values me. It is like a barometer of how much I believe in my heart the truth of God's real feelings about me. To the very same degree that I believe God does not care about me will be the amount of pride that I supply to fill the cavity. But since pride never really satisfies inner emptiness, life turns into an ever-increasing obsession of frenzied attempts to fill the ever-intensifying hunger for feeling valued and loved. Pride is a powerful addiction that only deepens the hunger that it seeks to satisfy.
Joy is the antidote for pride. Instead of attacking pride, which tends only to reinforce it, joy (someone who values me and enjoys me no matter what) supplies the very thing that my heart was designed to thrive on, the fuel that my soul was originally intended to use for thriving. The more joy I experience in my heart the less need I feel for pride. Pride simply melts away in the presence of joy like a snowman on a summer day. Condemnation does not help remove pride but joy smiles in the face of pride and pride finds no foothold to remain.
Rebellion is a close cousin of pride and likewise can be melted by true joy. For real joy at its core is filled with love and compassion which is the very essence of God Himself. Initially, I believe, rebellion in our lives begins with a sense of injustice against abuses that should not be in our lives. We rebel and push back against pain, against neglect, against abuse and wrongs committed against us that we were never designed to live under. There is something to be said in favor of rebelling against wrong and abuse. But then the abusers come and condemn our hearts for resisting their evil and present to us a distorted picture of God thundering against us with threats and intimidations. Our protests against wrongs and abuse are labeled as wicked rebellion and we are sometimes blasted with scripture to reinforce their control over us. “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” (1Samuel 15:23)
This kind of abuse of scripture only adds to the problem, and instead of reducing the feelings of rebellion it leads one into another whole level of rebellion against authority that becomes a much deeper problem that must be dealt with later on in life. It sets one up for all kinds of conflict and confusion that would easily have be avoided if it had not been for the spiritual abuse committed against a young child trying to learn how to relate to others and reconcile their emotions with what was going on around them. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And just so, one man's stubbornness is another man standing firm for what is “right”.
What we really need is the oil of joy to bring healing, hope and life back into our wounded souls. Like the story of the Good Samaritan ministering oil to the beaten man by the road, we need our hearts to be soothed with the wine and oil of the Holy Spirit to begin our recovery and train us to become wounded healers ourself.
God, I want to be much more filled with the strength of Your joy. You have promised that You will never leave me, that You will always be with me. Cause me to really know this at the heart level and to be transformed by the renewing of my mind into the joy-filled man You designed me to be. Fill me with Your river of grace and make me a minister of joy and love to others who are wounded like me – for Your names sake.
I'm going to have to re-read this post several times. I have so many thoughts, and areas of my life that it touches, that I need to take more time to work through it. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI take this as a very sincere affirmation. I am glad that it stimulates your heart like it is doing to mine. Some of these things just seem to coalesce unexpectedly in my mind from things I have been receiving over a number of years from various and separate sources. It seems like God is assembling pieces of a giant puzzle together and parts of the picture become clearer as various pieces suddenly fall into place. Then others take those partially assembled sections and fit them to their own partial sections and the picture continues to clarify. That's what it feels to me at least sometimes.
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