Joy In Believing
May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 TEV
Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled . . . Believe . . . in me” (John 14:1). When faith is strong, troubles become trifles.
There can be comfort in sorrow because in the midst of mourning God gives a song. God says in Job 30:9, “I am their song.” In Job 35:10 Elihu asks, “Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?” His presence in our lives changes our mourning into song, and that song is a song of comfort. Sometimes it must be night to have that song.
This kind of comfort is the kind which enabled a devout Englishman during World War II to look at a deep, dark hole in the ground where his home stood before the bombing and say, “I always did want a basement, I did. Now I can jolly well build another house like I always wanted.”
This kind of comfort is the kind which enabled a young minister’s wife in a church near us to teach her Sunday school class of girls on the very day of her husband’s funeral. Her mourning was not the kind which had no hope—it was a mourning of faith in the goodness and wisdom of God; it believed that our Heavenly Father makes no mistakes.
I often think of the two shortest verses in the Bible in this connection. “Jesus wept” is the shorter of the two. But in the original Greek I understand this “shortest” verse has three words whereas the verse from 1 Thessalonians 5:16 (“Rejoice evermore”) has only two. However, it is easy to see the lovely connection between the two verses. The Christian’s joy flows from the sympathy and grace of his Savior. Jesus wept—we rejoice evermore.
Our Father and our God, help me to hear Your songs in the dark night of my soul. Reach through the blackness and ignite a spark of hope and joy in my heart. Teach me to sing through my sadness, to laugh through my tears, and to feel Your compassion when I am covered over with concerns. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010.)