Oh, the truths that plant in our hearts and bloom in our lives are joy in action! It’s great to be with you today for our Coffee Hour! Grab your coffee and let’s resume our recipe of joy.
In Job, we learned that joy can be found despite our circumstances when we concentrate on the object/giver of our joy!
Who
do you look to for joy? In the context of the recipe of joy, who is
your Master Chef? So many of us so much of the time look to others to
make us happy and we all have either been told and heard, or learned
that happiness is based on external circumstances while joy comes from
within; it’s internal. So if joy comes from within, then this truth
leads me back to my salvation; the day I asked Jesus in – into – my
heart; He became the Master Chef, stirring up my joy, adding to my joy,
perfecting my joy and protecting my joy. In other words, He’s not just
my/our Master Chef in this complex recipe of joy, He’s our joy keeper;
He’s our joy!So if our focus is on our mountain – our troubles and struggles, or our recent disappointment, or a failing relationship, or a wayward child – and our focus is not on our Master Chef, then guess what? The stirring, the increasing, the perfecting and protecting of our joy all lay dormant, still and quiet, fading into the background of the noise of our lives.
Why oh why can’t He just stir that joy up during those troubles and struggles, before a relationship fails, or our children go down the wrong path? Because our Master Chef is a gentleman, only coming into the scene when invited, and that invitation can be as simple as a cry for help, or as complex as a total surrender.
Wait, I hear another question echoing in the main hallway of my heart.
“But what if I’ve already done that?”
A-ha, I’m so glad you asked. Just as a student taking cooking lessons from a chef for a particular recipe pays close attention to each ingredient put into the recipe, so we must look to and trust this truth: Our Master Chef is at work, cooking up something beautiful inside of us despite what is happening outside of us! He knows every ingredient needed for the current recipe of your life and He will turn up the fire in order to refine our joy! (Malachi 3:3)
Joyfully,
Evinda
