Choose JoySample

DAY 28 - CONSOLATION OF JOY

Reflection: There are many Christians in the world today whose lives are at risk because of their faith. Many brothers and sisters live in war-torn countries and constantly fear for the well-being of their families. Even in wealthy developed nations, many people’s lives seem impossibly difficult. You may or may not identify with these situations, but all humans face moments of loss, vulnerability, and desperation.

Psalm 94 speaks from the place of oppression but arrives at the consolation of joy. When all seemed lost, when death seemed close, when anxiety was great, the unfailing love of God brings the consolation of joy.

One of the great strengths of the Christian faith is that it’s not just for good days, or safe countries, or comfortable lives. At its heart is a saviour who experienced the worst the world brings, but was never without joy.

Facing the horrors of Nazi persecution, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, ‘The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the agony of the cross; that is why it is invincible, irrefutable. It does not deny the anguish, when it is there, but finds God in the midst of it, in fact precisely there; it does not deny grave sin but finds forgiveness precisely in this way; it looks death straight in the eye, but it finds life precisely within it.’ *

Choose joy: Ask God for his help whenever you feel anxious and that your ‘foot is slipping’. Pray for persecuted believers and those living with the presence of war.

* Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 16, Conspiracy and Imprisonment: 1940–1945 (Fortress, 2006) pp 377-378. Used with permission.