Joy

This year, our household has decided to distribute cards with a verse on the back, to all our immediate neighbours.  We’ve used the theme of the Sundays in Advent – Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, and then one for Christmas Day itself.

On the first Sunday of Advent (Hope), we returned home from visiting family for the weekend, and everywhere was dark!  It was quite an experience tackling different letterboxes in the darkness, some were too small, some were hidden in the wall, others were in separate boxes whilst others were so low down that it needed some contortion to push the envelope through, not to mention the ones that nipped our fingers!

The Second Sunday in Advent found us heading to another town to take a church service, and then to visit friends afterwards, so I knew that it would, once again, be dark by the time we got home.  So, I got up early in the morning and set off to deliver our greetings.  On arrival home, I found, to my chagrin, that I had delivered week three, not week two!  I had delivered JOY instead of PEACE.

Although we decided it really didn’t matter, peace would be delivered the following week, I still felt disappointed that I’d ‘got it wrong’.  But then, thinking about it, I realised that we all need JOY in our lives, every day.

Nehemiah 8:10 (NLT) says: “Don’t be dejected and sad, for the JOY of the Lord is your strength.”

I also prayed that, in some unseen way, the Holy Spirit had guided me to deliver JOY, maybe someone really needed to have that message delivered that day.  Maybe you need it, too.

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Romans 15:13