As usual, here is my fairly literal translation of these verses:
3Be gracious to me, Adonai, because to You I call all the day. 4Gladden the soul of Your servant because to You, Adonai, I lift up my soul.
Practically every word or phrase in these two verses is loaded with instruction and encouragement. But for me personally, what stands out is the reference here to joy. David says in verse 4, “Gladden the soul of Your servant.” The Hebrew word I’ve translated “gladden” is a root word that means literally “to brighten” or even “to lift up.” It can be translated “Give joy.” David is asking the Lord to give him joy in the midst of whatever he is facing.
Joy. An interesting subject. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace …” I noticed several years ago that I could read through the list of the fruits of the Spirit and feel I definitely know the presence of each one in my Christian life … except joy. I feel I’ve learned very little of real Holy Spirit joy. I certainly know what it is to be happy, to have happy (even joyful) things in my life. I know what joy is specifically when I’m thinking about God, about His love for me, His gracious oversight of my life, etc. But I feel those are like fleeting glimpses compared to the real thing. I know that real joy is something much deeper than that. And I just haven’t felt I knew much about it.
I have compared it to the man standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot with three fingers slammed shut in his car door … which unfortunately is also locked. As he stands there in pain, one could ask, “Are you thankful for the beautiful sunshine today?” “Are you thankful you have a wife and three wonderful children?” “Are you thankful you have a job?” He could answer yes to each of those questions. “So would you describe yourself as a joyful man?” “What do you mean joyful?” he asks, “IT HURTS!!”
That is where my enigma has entered. How can I be “joyful” when life is so full of pain? Do I have things that make me joyful? Yes. Do I find joy in the Lord? Yes. But I also have a lot of pain that never seems to let up. This world is truly a “Valley of Bacah.” So how does one have Holy Spirit joy in the middle of it all? At this point, one can throw out pat answers and clichés, but I’m talking about being real. Really. How can I actually really have some kind of on-going, underlying Holy Spirit joy even while the fingers of my life are pinched in the door?
The first time I began to glimpse the answer to my question was the first time I realized that Peter walked on the water in a storm. Peter experienced that miracle in a storm they all thought would drown them. He walked on the water in the storm as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus. But it was in the storm. While we’re in the storms – while our fingers are pinched in the door – like Peter, we have to keep our eyes on Jesus. We have to prayerfully, sincerely try to never let up seeing Him in the storm with us, see His sovereign hand over it, see His great eternal purposes in it, embrace His love even in it. Then I find there is in fact a supernatural strength, even a joy in that storm, in that pain.
I feel like I’m barely touching this truth. My soul grasps it feebly. And yet it is there. And I believe it really is Holy Spirit joy – the fruit of the Spirit. Not just the fleeting joy of happy circumstances but a joy that lives and breathes even as I’m dying, even as the pain of life seems unbearable. I feel what I need is just more “practice,” more time deliberately spent sincerely trying to keep my focus, to keep my gaze fixed on Jesus, to be seeing Him even in the storms. I don’t like the fact that this means I need more storms to practice in (!). I don’t want any more storms. I don’t want any more pain. But then again, I do want to see Jesus in the storm. I want to walk on the water with Him. And that takes storms. I’m glad in His own trials, He prayed, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” I’m not asking for pain, but I am asking for the strength and grace to learn a joy that really is above circumstances, good or bad. “Bring joy to Your servant, Adonai, for I lift up my soul to You.”
Another thought before I stop: as I pointed out above, the Hebrew word means literally “to brighten” or even “to lift up.” That’s really what joy is. From within one’s soul, joy is a brightening, a lifting up. The opposite is of course “to darken” and “to push down.” The natural effect of pain and trouble is to darken our lives, to push us down, even to crush us. And we all have plenty of that. I think this is why it has to be Holy Spirit joy. It can’t just be happy circumstances. Those are great but they don’t help when suddenly something else darkens my world and knocks me down. Something supernatural has to happen for me to be brightened though my world goes dark, to feel “lifted up” while troubles are crushing me down. And what is that something? It is essentially faith. Faith practiced. Faith applied. Standing on the promises. Seeing Jesus, truly seeing Him, in the storm. I’m thinking it helps to know exactly what is this Holy Spirit joy, what exactly it is that I might experience – and this is what it is – a brightening or a lifting up of my heart at all times, good or seemingly bad.
And finally, knowing this, it is interesting that David asks the Lord to brighten his world, to lift him up. We want God to do that for us. But shouldn’t we do that for others? Wouldn’t it make a great goal to actually seek opportunities all through our day to deliberately “brighten” someone else’s world? We can’t give them Holy Spirit joy, but still we can sincerely try not to be a dark cloud, try to be a brightening presence – by saying things to brighten someone else’s day, to do something that “lifts” their spirit. Only God Himself can give Holy Spirit joy, but I am thinking that, while I try to let Him do that in my life, I should be constantly aware of how much it means to me, then try in my own feeble way to do the same for others. “An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up” (Prov 12:25). “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Prov 17:22).
Joy is a good thing. Our worlds could all use a whole lot more of it.
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