Count it all Joy

I tend to be the type to trust, to give people a chance, well probably many chances (and some would say many undeserved chances)...each person has to be dealt with as an individual so I will continue to trust people. Love is all about seeing the best in people. It does hurt, it stings right done to the tiniest bone in your body, when those you felt the most trustworthy, aren't. However, I'm not sure that trust is the right word in this scenario...I mean, I don't know if the word trustworthy is right...did they ever prove themselves trustworthy, in some ways, but over the years there are far more many ways they haven't been trustworthy. I (and others) have just placed them on this platter of trustworthiness because of who they are and the position they filled. All too often we forget that we are for the most part all alike. That no matter our status, we are still human. We still breath, sleep, eat, hurt, and feel. No matter our position we still suffer the same faults, illnesses and the same sin. I guess bottom line is that people are human, none better than the other, we are all just trying to make it somewhere and hopefully that somewhere relies on reaching for Christ and letting Him pull us through.

In any walk of life there are times of distress. There are times of brokenness. For Christians, they are bittersweet moments because the reality of them is so heartbreaking, yet ultimately they must draw us nearer to the brokenness of Christ's cross and the healing that flows from His wounds. In the book Resurrecting Excellence, Jones and Armstrong say it this way: "Patterning our lives in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ invites us to discover intersections that we often otherwise turn into false alternatives - youth and age, strength and weakness, joy and suffering, abundance and sacrifice, tragedy and hope, community and solitude, church and world. Churches (Christians) that live in these intersections are likely to manifest a commitment to resurrecting excellence precisely by being shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ...The letter to the Ephesians describes resurrecting excellence in this way: 'I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God' (3:18-19)."

What they are talking about here is realizing that my life as a Christian, and if you are one, your life as a Christian is about living a life of spirit-filled joy that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ, that comes from His cross, yet never forgetting the brokenness of humanity. This brokenness is not exclusive, it is humanity. Which is why we must follow that brokenness to the cross of Christ and find the joy that comes from His resurrection. It is in these intersections, that we find that joy...it is comprehending that love of Christ surpasses all knowledge and it is through Him that we will find peace and understanding in the most difficult times of our lives. It is through Him and Him alone that I can count these moments of heartbreak and brokenness as all joy!