How do you find the strength and motivation to pray?
Having grown up in the church, I learned to sing the verse, "The joy-y of the Lor-or-or-d is my strength," early on. I accepted the joy-strength connection as one of the many mysteries of the faith - something amazing that I cannot comprehend. But last night the Lord gave me fresh insight, taking the verse from mystery to understanding.
3:20 am. My bed warm, my body tired. I could roll over and take the night off. Or, I could rise as usual for my prayer time in the night. Why would I rise? I sensed that it was not a matter of obedience this time. So, why not roll over and get more sleep? A strong temptation, indeed. Then, it occurred to me that I would honestly feel sad, like I had missed out on something special, if I did not rise. So I determined that I would get up for one reason only -- the potential for joy in spending one hour with my Lord. As I pulled back the covers and stuck my feet in slippers, I sensed strength coming already. By looking toward the joy of this hour, I gained the strength of will to rise. In rising, even in its first steps, I gained a tangible strength that I did not have before.
This led me to ponder, how do we do the hard things? Where do we get the strength to move into new territory and to persevere when things get hard?
Perhaps the question of HOW we do hard things has more to do with "Why do we do hard things?" than it does with anything else. The WHY is what produces the strength to follow through. Recall stories of super-human strength. How does the woman lift the car off her toddler? The LOVE produces the power. How do missionaries stay in hard places for years? The JOY set before them is too great to ignore. How did Jesus find the will to face the cross? It was for the joy set before him -- the joy of redeeming us.
How do we find strength to persevere -- in prayer, in parenting well, in teaching our children, in loving others? Perhaps it is the focus on the joy and the love. LOVE casts out the fear, and JOY lights a fire in our hearts giving us the strength to persevere.
Ponder ... What is the joy set before YOU that will give you the strength to move into your calling? What joys will strengthen YOU to persevere?
We are ALL created to enjoy God - to delight in Him. Being with Him, being in the center of His will, is the place of delight. He delights in us and He wants us to delight in Him.
There are great joys available for us now, but sometimes that seem hard to feel in the midst of other pain. However, we don't live for today alone. We live for eternal rewards and eternal communion with Christ. We have a joy set before us that transcends all emotions and circumstances of today.
Lord, may YOUR JOY fill our hearts and set us aflame to bring glory to your name!
After I typed this, I saved it as a draft and went to C-HOP. There a guest speaker, Nathan Panke, gave a message on guess what: The Joy of the Lord is My Strength!
God is awesome!
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