I recently read a devotional taken, in part, from the book Winning the War in Your Mind, by Craig Groeschel. I haven’t read the book, so please do not write me about endorsing a book by someone I know little to nothing about. I do know this, however: a section of this devotional provided an aha moment for me, and I cannot take credit for a thought not originally my own, so I share its source here.
How often, in the midst of a trial, difficulty, hardship, or other “off-script” moment have we heard, shared, or read for the hundredth time, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4, ESV)? It really is an amazingly impactful verse—when properly applied.
The application is what I suddenly realized I had been viewing all wrong.
Maybe it’s just been me (and in that case, you have my full permission to roll your eyes in disbelief at my simplemindedness in not “getting it” until now). Maybe I’m the only one who has clung to this verse with all my might, wondering why it wasn’t “working.” Maybe I was the only one feeling like I was failing at rejoicing in my circumstances.
Circumstances
I don’t know your current circumstances. I can care; I can pray; I can, in some cases, understand them. However, I don’t know how God has prepared you for this moment. Nor do I know why He has entrusted these circumstances to you.
I do know this: your current struggle, no matter its depth, is very real to you. It is your struggle.
Therefore, don’t look at your circumstances in light of someone else’s. You don’t have grace for their difficulties, and they don’t have grace for yours.
Let’s face it: you just can’t rejoice in the word cancer. You will find it hard (if not impossible) to rejoice in the word no, especially when you have pled with the Lord to change your circumstances. But this verse is not about rejoicing in the circumstances.
It’s about rejoicing in the Lord.
Certainty
Circumstances change. Our viewpoint of them changes. Our response to them changes as we mature and grow. Our memory of them can even change as we learn to filter them through what we’ve learned from them. (Think of the expression, “Hindsight is better than foresight.”)
God, however, never changes. In Malachi 3:6 (ESV), God proclaimed of Himself: “For I the Lord do not change….” If this was true in the situation for which He stated it, and He indeed does not change, then it is still true today. (And it is!)
That is what—no, Who—we are told to rejoice in via the repeated lesson in Philippians 4:4. Let’s read it together again with that in mind: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (emphasis mine).
His love for us is certain. His presence with us is certain. His care for us is certain. His promises are certain. His truths are certain.
He is the One we are to rejoice in—no matter the circumstances!
Challenge
So here is my challenge for you today: Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in Who He is and in what He has done and is doing in you and through you. Rejoice in His promises. Rejoice in His love. Rejoice in the fact that when difficult circumstances arise, He is still there. He is still God.
Now that’s something—SomeONE—to rejoice in!
Additional reading:
Isaiah 43:2 (Written to a specific group at the time, yes. However, same God, same truths about Who He is!)
And because we can rejoice in the Lord, we can give thanks in everything, including cancer and leukemia and death of loved ones, because we have Him.