Psalm 86:4-5 “Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.” This episode talks about how we would have more joy if we had more trust in the Lord. It also talks about the importance of accepting God's forgiveness and knowing that His love abounds for us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Joy, Trust, Forgiveness & Love
Psalm 86:4-5 “Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.”
Joy is one of my favorite words. It makes me smile just hearing it. The reason I like the word joy so much is because it reminds me of God. Only God can bring you joy in the middle of a difficult situation. Only the Holy Spirit can remind you of something that makes you smile or laugh, when all you feel like doing is crying. Have you ever been in a situation where you know you should be crying, but you are laughing? That is the Holy Spirit moving in you. I remember when my grandpa Desilets, my dad’s dad, passed away we laughed a lot at his wake. It wasn’t that we weren’t sad, we were so sad. Yet, we kept remembering the good times that we spent with him. We remembered all the funny stories and we shared them with each other.
The same thing happened at my friend Shannon’s wake. This was even more sad in my eyes as my grandpa had lived a nice long life. He got to see his children grow up and have children and then see his grandchildren have children. However, my friend Shannon was 40 years old. She had daughter that was only 9 years old. All we wanted to do at that wake was cry. Her passing was so tragic. However, they Holy Spirit knew what we needed. He knew that we needed to remember the fun times we had with Shannon. We needed to remember how funny she was and all the times that she made us laugh. She was so full of life and she loved to make people laugh. She would have wanted us to be laughing and not crying because that is who she was.
I also like how this verse is pairing joy with trust in God. I have found the more we trust God, the more joy we find in our lives. This makes a lot of sense. It is difficult to have joy when you are worried all the time. However, the more you are able to let that worry go by handing it over to God and trusting He will take care of it, the more room you will have for joy. I found so much joy in my life once I learned to trust that God was in control. Once I realized I could have joy even when I wasn’t happy. I have a friend that is going through a really difficult time right now. She is going through something that no parent should have to go through. Yet many do. She is devastated by the situation and yet she is still finding joy in her days. She is trusting that God will take care of the situation and He will do a much better job than she can because He knows all the little pieces that she doesn’t know. He can see both sides. He can see right into the heart of her son and He knows what her son is thinking and feeling.
It is not easy for her, or any of us, to let go of the control we think we have over our difficult situation. However, the control we think we have is just an illusion anyway. God is in control, whether we want to admit it or not. We can waste our time and energy fighting Him and trying to keep hold of that control, or we can let go and let Him take care of it. Once we finally let go, which usually isn’t until we have done all we can do and have no other choice but to surrender it to God, then we feel so much better. If you have ever been able to turn something over to God, something that was really weighing on your mind and soul, you feel lighter afterwards. You can actually feel this weight being lifted off of your shoulders. It is amazing. Then we always ask ourselves why we didn’t hand it over sooner. Why can’t we remember this feeling for the next time this happens? Why can’t we hand things over to God sooner? Why do we always have to do it the hard way? If we can learn to trust God with our struggles, trust that He will help us through them, we would have so much more joy in our lives.
The next line in the verse says, “ You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.” This is something we can’t hear enough because it is so hard for us to believe. The Lord is forgiving. Do you believe this, really believe this? And when I say do you believe this, I don’t mean do you believe that God forgives everyone else, but He doesn’t forgive you. I mean do you believe that God forgives you. Do you believe that there is nothing beyond the scope of God’s forgiveness? Sometimes we feel like we are not worthy of God’s forgiveness because we have done too many bad things. My first thought is, we are right, we are not worthy, no one is. However, God doesn’t give His forgiveness to those that are worthy. He gives His forgiveness to anyone that asks for it. There is no preferential treatment when it comes to God’s forgiveness. There are only two requirements. First, we must repent for out sins. Repent means you feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin. Basically you have to be sorry for your sins. Second, we must ask for forgiveness. God wants to forgive us, He is just waiting for us to repent and turn back to Him. Ask the Lord and He will forgive you.
The next step is the hard one. After He forgives you, you need to accept that forgiveness and forgive yourself. If the Lord God almighty can forgive us, why can’t we forgive ourselves. Why do we hold onto the guilt? It is like we are torturing ourselves. If we hold onto the guilt even after God has forgiven us then it is like we are saying to God, that we don’t accept His forgiveness. Do we think we know better than Him? Our sins are not greater than His forgiveness. When we realize that, we will have more joy in our lives as well. Living with guilt and feeling like you can’t be forgiven makes living hard. It is hard to be happy and joyful when we are filled with guilt and regret. Let it go. I know its not always easy to let God’s forgiveness into your lies. However, if you do, you won’t be sorry. If you are struggling to forgive yourself for something, ask God for help. He loves to help us, and He is just waiting for us to ask.
The verse ends with the words, “abounding in love to all who call to you.” The Lord is abounding with love. Isn’t that a great picture of the Lord? The word abounding doesn’t really leave much room for lack. Sometimes we might not feel loved by the Lord and we might think that He doesn’t have enough love for us. This is not true. The Lord loves you just as much as He loves everyone else. When I picture the word abounding, I think of the word overflowing. This is how I picture the Lord’s love for us. It is overflowing. Not only is there enough love for each and everyone one of us, but His love for us is overflowing. In the mornings I fill my dog’s water dish up at the sink. Sometimes I turn the water on for the dish while I do something else. Occasionally I will forget and when I remember the dish is overflowing with water. This is how I picture the Lord’s love. It more than enough to fill each one of us up and then some. If you are not feeling this love, all you need to do is call on Him. Call on His forgiveness, call on His love. Call on Him and He will give you all you need.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we love you so much and we are so grateful for all that you do for us. We don’t always understand why you forgive us but we are grateful that you do. Help us to accept this forgiveness and to forgive ourselves. Lord, we thank you for all the joy you bring into our lives. We thank you for the times you remind us to laugh when all we want to do is cry. Lord, we have more joy when we put our trust in your, please help us to do that. Help us to turn our worries over to you and not take them back again. You are so great Lord. We call on you to love us Lord. Help us to feel that love, fill us up with that love. You are so amazing and we are so grateful that you love abounds for those who call on you. Help us to call on you Lord. We ask all of this in accordance with you will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend.