David C. Hughes, Writer

“For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your JOY will be complete." –Deuteronomy 16:15

Archive for the tag “Christ Jesus”

28 Nov 2013

The Epiphany of Joy, Chapter 8: Joy in Gratitude [2 of 2]

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!  Please enjoy the 2nd half of The Epiphany of Joy, Chapter 8, while I scamper off to help my wife start preparing dinner.  God bless you!

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As I write this chapter, Thanksgiving is only three days away.  As coordinator of the after-school program for The Rock of Sports and Performing Arts, the gym Hannah trains at, Mary put together a curriculum of thankfulness and gratitude for the month of November.  Mary felt called to help cultivate, and maybe even introduce, an attitude of appreciation for the everyday blessings we may take for granted. One of the projects she developed for the month was a “gratitude journal,” where the kids answer a series of questions beginning with the preamble “What are you thankful for that’s . . . .”  When asked “What are you thankful for that’s small?” one of the girls in the program responded “I’m thankful for how small is my love for God and [how] it will get bigger.”  Out of the mouths of babes, I’m tellin’ ya!

“A thankful attitude opens windows of heaven,” Sarah Young wrote in Jesus Calling (November 22nd entry). The moment I wake up in the morning, I try to jumpstart my day by praying “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it, for I believe I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me.” You may recognize my wake-up prayer as a combination of Psalm 118:24 and Philippians 4:13.  I find that starting off the day with an attitude of rejoicing, thankfulness, and appreciation banishes negativity and instills joy in my heart from the get-go; this simple prayer can sweep away some powerful negativism.  Mary wonders how I can be so happy immediately after the alarm buzzes and I roll out of bed.  Now the secret is out!

In his first letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul wrote “Rejoice always, pray continuously, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). Giving thanks in all circumstances is God’s will for us, as is rejoicing (expressing joy), and praying (engaging God in conversation).  Giving thanks when things are going well is one thing, but thanking God for the challenges and flat-out nasty stuff?  That’s an attitude-changer, a door opening to God’s storeroom of unlimited joy.  As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 100:4, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6 NIV).  The result of presenting our petitions with thanksgiving?  “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7 NIV).  The fruit of thanksgiving is peace, a peace which goes beyond the natural and is anchored firmly in the supernatural.

Thankfulness raises the awareness of God’s presence in my life, and with this awareness comes joy.  Little things I may have passed by without noticing come into sharp focus in the light of I AM: the peek of hot pink sunrise between the horizon and the thick gray cloud layer above, that flash of momentary radiance, God’s “Good morning” as I finish up the day’s devotional; the unexpected rain storm which pops up the day I write “Water trees” on my to-do list; the sudden discount on the hardwood flooring we’d been wanting to install, but didn’t want to pay that much for; the inrush of sudden inspiration tumbling through my head at 3:00 in the morning, thoughts that perfectly complete the chapter I’ve been stuck on for the past couple days.  When you embrace a moment-by-moment appreciation, God will play “Where’s Waldo” with you all day long by hiding His little pleasures wrapped in good timing just to see you smile when you notice them. He’s a great Daddy!

I like to think of these as “Thank You, Jesus” moments, where Mary and I just can’t help but smile and say “Thank You” to the One who orchestrates our joy.  And as gratitude becomes a habit, as I open my eyes to even the smallest things to be thankful about, I find myself saying “Thank You, Jesus” a lot during the day.  What a great way to start the day, what a great way to experience it, and what a spectacular way to end it.

One morning I woke up with my sinuses on fire and my throat irritated from the dry winter air.  “That’s one thing I don’t like about this time of year,” I said to Mary as we rolled out of bed at o’dark thirty.  “The heater dries out my sinuses.”  Then instantly I said “Thank You, Jesus, for the heater,” and I imagined what it would be like to suffer through a North Texas winter–or any winter for that matter–without a furnace in the house.  As I sat on the bathtub step writing this experience in my notebook, Mary walked into the bathroom to get a shower.  “Thank You, Jesus, for hitting my husband.”  Believe me, I’m thankful He clobbers me over the head with these nuggets of inspiration–it makes my job all that much joy-filled as I recognize the gifts He’s poured out on me and my family.

Appreciating the gifts–and the giver–makes having received the gifts even more valuable.  When I was a kid, my mom made sure I wrote out and mailed off a thank you note for every birthday present, graduation gift, or Christmas present I’d ever received.  I don’t think I fully appreciated this expression of gratitude at the time, especially after a particularly large haul from a birthday or graduation party, but as I grew older I realized writing out a thank you note by hand forces you to slow down a bit and actually reflect on the giver’s thoughtfulness, and maybe even sacrifice.  The act of expressing appreciation can make the gift all that much sweeter and more memorable–to this day I can remember specific wedding gifts Mary and I received, and who gave them to us.  Now we hover over Hannah for days as she writes out her thank you notes in halting early-first-grade script, and it warms my heart to see the enjoyment she now gets in doing it herself.

Gratitude raises my capacity to receive and express appreciation for even the smallest things, tangible or not.  As I practice gratitude, I look forward to finding the little pleasures God sprinkles throughout the day for me to find, pecks on the cheek from the One Who wants me to experience life with joy, peace, freedom, and gratitude.  Thank You, Jesus, for good health.  Thank You, Jesus, for financial provision.  Thank You, Lord, for opportunities.  Thank You, Lord, for my talents and abilities.  Thank You, Jesus, for my family, my friends, my church, and my relationship with You.  And thank You, Jesus, for the opportunity to glorify You by living today as You intended, with a heart of gratitude.  May You implant this attitude ever deeper into our hearts.  And, by the way, thank You, Lord, for You!

 

Copyright ©2013 by David C. Hughes

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14 Nov 2013

The Epiphany of Joy, Chapter 4: Joy in Trusting God [2 of 2]

In my quest to buy myself out of the hole of unfulfillment I’d dug for myself, I fell for every get-rich-quick scheme that evil could conjure: multi-level marketing, a militant goal-setting program on cassette tape, gold coins, penny stocks, the stock market, even my job.  And with each failed attempt to make my million, jump off the hamster wheel, and get on with my writing career, God kicked out another pier holding up my fantasyland of trusting in money.  Isn’t it ironic that “In God We Trust” is printed on every paper bill and etched on every U.S. coin minted in recent history?  It should be a reminder that money is only a tool, a servant, as P.T. Barnum declared, a means to a greater end as long as it’s framed in the proper perspective.  But I didn’t comprehend that truth; I built a road paved with the green stuff in all its fickleness, power, and empty promises.

The road I constructed meandered from greed to false hope to despair.  It doubled back on itself, leading me from fear to depression to grief.  It spun in ever widening circles of mistrust in myself, other people, and, ironically, in money.  I developed a deep disgust for people working in the financial industry because each one I’d ever dealt with had led me down a path of financial loss.  And financial loss equated to loss of hope in the dream which tried again and again to germinate in my stony heart.  I had lost all trust, especially as I watched in horror as the Great Recession swept away hundreds of thousands of dollars I’d saved over the course of my career.

As I writhed from the shock of the financial meltdown and its gut-wrenching effect on my 401K, and as frustration grew over the stagnation of my job’s financial reality and potential, God propelled me into slaying my lust for money and convinced me to place my trust squarely in Him once-and-for-all.  “God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him,” the apostle Paul promised the Christians living in first-century Rome (Romans 8:28 NIV).  Not some things.  Not most things.  All things, both good and bad.  And when God released me from the shackles of self-delusion and opened my eyes to the connectedness of the past and the promise of a joy-filled, prosperous future, I accepted His permission to step out in faith and step into His will.  As King Solomon urged in Proverbs, I finally submitted:

 

  Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

  in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

–Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

 

After years of false security and unfulfilled promises, the spirit of mammon finally spit me out.  That’s when God picked me up at Fully Alive, shifted my eyes away from the love of money and the bitterness of unforgiveness, and refocused them on His love, His abundance, and His security.  “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians. “Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1).  In my new freedom I took off my yoke of slavery and relocated my trust from the burnt-out tenements of mammon to the unlimited glory of the One Who created me.  I was no longer a slave but a free man, and not only a free man but a son of the One True God.

“Trust that I am right now creating these paths and opportunities for you,” God had told me at that men’s retreat in January 2011, “Enjoy and be filled with joy!  This is the path.”  Like Abram trusting God’s call in Genesis 12:1 to “leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you,” I took the leap of faith and began to trust.  I mean, really deep-down-in-my-heart trust God and His promises.  But it wasn’t easy.  In fact, because of the decades of my reliance on money and the false hope of a secure future based on its sandy foundations, it took me another year to relinquish the hold it had on me, and still another year to jump feet-first into the river of trust.  I divorced a steady six-figure income and the promise of a six-figure retirement to re-marry the One who “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (1 Timothy 6:17 NIV).  Like Abram did, I “left as the Lord had told” me (Genesis 12:4).  I’m still holding my nose as I’m being swept away from my old self by the stream of living water, but each “coincidence,” each kiss on the cheek from God the Provider, each unexpected financial blessing inches me toward complete and total trust in the One Who “created [me] in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for [me] to do.” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).

The psalmist wrote in Psalm 91:1-4:

 

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my

    fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare

    and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers,

    and under his wings you will find refuge;

    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

 

God’s faithfulness is my shield and rampart; He never gave up on me even when I gave up on Him.  He never let me go even though I let Him go.  He does hide me under His wings.  The God Who created me and predestined me according to His plan “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” (Ephesians 1:11 NIV).  I can trust that “he who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6).  Finally submitting to God and trusting His will has changed my life forever.  I trust myself again.  I trust God again.  And in that trust is an ever-abiding joy.

 

Copyright ©2013 by David C. Hughes

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