Joy
You will rejoice in the Lord
and take pride in the holy one of Israel. ~ Isaiah 41:16b (CEB)
Finally, my dear friends, be glad that you belong to the Lord. It doesn’t bother me to write the same things to you that I have written before. In fact, it is for your own good. ~ Philippians 3:1 (CEV)
Lord, sometimes I get frustrated. There are so many things that happen to me which seem to suck all the joy out of life. I wish you'd make all those frustrating things go away. But maybe you just want me to find my joy somewhere else. I'm guessing that you allow the frustrating things to happen so that I turn and find my joy in you -- and you alone. With your help that is what I am going to do. I am committing myself to living a life filled with the joy that bubbles out of my relationship with you. This is joy that the frustrations of life can't stop. There is no greater joy than belonging to you. Amen.
Challenging Words
- frustrated -- feeling stressed or annoyed by things or circumstances you can't fix or improve
- bubbles out -- metaphor based on the bubbles that appear with active water. For example, when water surfaces from an underground spring, it bubbles out of the ground. It is full of life and energy. When we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ there is a lively and energetic joy that bubbles out of the relationship.
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2015 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul. The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase — my own freestyle biblical adaptation — somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
