Renewed Joy in the Lord: An Update

Dear Sister,

Every season of life will bring the temptation to doubt and wonder how God will work and move in your life to somehow bring about his plan. As I shared with you in my last post, sometimes I struggle to trust God with his timing to grow me. Yet, he promises to complete the work that he has begun in each one of his children (Philippians 1:6). After all, his will is to grow us in Christ-likeness for his glory and our good.

Day to day, however, it is difficult to remember the big picture of God's loving plan to grow us in his wise and careful discipline. In the moment of trial, no matter how big or small, it is hard to not be so overwhelmed with the frustration and inconvenience to rejoice that the Lord will lovingly use each situation for our good and growth in Him.

I have been in a season that I have seen little growth and purpose coming from various difficult situations.  Yet, God has been so kind to give me little glimpses of his work on me and through me. Even this summer, while serving in Croatia in various ministries, I have often been discouraged that perhaps my time here has been wasted and that I will never see good results from my days here. I have been burdened by personal sin as well as just feeling dry and empty. In these last couple of months though God has been so kind and gracious to continue to show me how He has grown me.

Psalm 42:1-8

As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

how I would go with the throng

and lead them in procession to the house of God

with glad shouts and songs of praise,

a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation 6 and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;

therefore I remember you

from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,

from Mount Mizar.

 Deep calls to deep

at the roar of your waterfalls;

all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me.

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,

and at night his song is with me,

a prayer to the God of my life.

This past week, I participated in a camp hosted by several like-minded Baptist churches in Croatia. Each year they preach through one book of the Bible through evening sermons and morning small groups, and this year they just so happened to be studying through Philippians.

For the past two years, Paul's letter to the Philippians has been an encouragement to me to fight for the joy and the contentment found in Christ alone in every circumstance. I have read this epistle countless times and have even committed chapters to memory.  Still, I am learning from the depths of this small portion of God's bountiful Word.

When I first arrived, I felt defeated, weak, and so very alone. I was the only native English speaker there at the time (two other Americans and an Irish family would come later for a few days). Yet again, God had given me the opportunity to experience weakness in a new way. This time, I was feeling my vulnerability and dependence on God to persevere as a lone single girl among a sea of people communicating in a language I still struggle to engage in. It had been more than two months since arriving in Croatia, and now here I was alone without the missionary family I had grown to love (the girls had already traveled to the States for a brief furlough) and without many of my English speaking Croatian friends (they would arrive a few days later).  Here I was living life with mostly unfamiliar people speaking rapid Croatian camping in a tent on an island off the coast of a foreign country... Basically, the perfect recipe for isolation and homesickness to settle in.

As the days went on, I began to feel less homesick, settled in to the routine of the camp, and welcomed the company of  familiar friends... but it was the messages and the Croatian brothers and sisters around me that led to the greatest joy. Faithful pastors preached and lived out the message of true joy taught in Philippians.

Surrounding me were so many examples of joy that can only be found in the Lord.I met a gypsy girl who was ridiculed by her community for accepting Jesus, but is so full of joy in the Lord that she can't help but sing praise songs wherever she goes. I heard the story of a pastor's faithful brother who lost his wife suddenly to cancer, but still sang praises with joy knowing his wife and mother of their two children is resting safely with the Lord. I saw a dear friend cry tears of joy as she began to realize anew the surpassing worth and undeserved blessing of knowing Christ though she still battles daily against a crippling muscular disease. God also blessed me with several conversations that I know would not have been so rich and encouraging had I not been learning and growing these past two years, as I studied Philippians and walked through the daily struggles of life.

God used this past week to open my eyes to see not only how God has fulfilled his promise to use the comfort I have found in Him to comfort others, but also how God has been working to grow me through the daily fight for joy in him. Somehow, the experience this past week even open my eyes to see this whole summer and the past two years in a different light. Now I see more clearly that I am not the same girl who I used to be. God has changed me and will continue to chisel away at me, even if in the moment I can't recognize the outcome of all the pain and broken pieces of my life coming together and shaping me for my good.

To see in so many ways that God has indeed changed and grown me over the past 6 years of Christian life and even in these past 3 months has been such a refreshing blessing. God is renewing the joy of my salvation, and I am seeing anew that I cannot rest on shaky feelings and my own perspective of what God is doing in my life. In the moment, you rarely see how God is at work, but maybe two years down the line He will show you God is working even now to shape you more into the image of Christ through the daily struggles of life. So if you are struggling for joy and contentment wherever God has you, if you are tempted to believe that maybe God has left you or that you are too much a of a mess for God to change you, keep striving toward the Lord and seeking to follow him faithfully. Engage your fears and failures with the truth of the Gospel. There is joy to be found.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

my flesh also dwells secure.

 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16:9-11

With love,

Michaela