Stale Air

 "You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence." Psalm 16:11....."Jesus is the wisdom of God. He is the Provision of our sovereign Lord. He is our refuge from the world of sin and death. All God given roads lead to Him." Chris Tiegreen...."Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God." Leon Bloy

How can it be that those who should be the most joyful people in the world, His followers, are instead often among the most joyless? In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the kingdom of Rohan is under the oppression of the dark realm of Isengard. As they enter it's king's city, the dwarf, Gimli Gloin, seeing the despair on the faces of its citizens remarks, "You'll find more joy in a graveyard." I wonder, to an onlooking world and church, is that the impression many of us give as well? Are we joyless believers? Can there even be such a person?

Why is His joy missing in so many lives? It's a complex question that has a more simple answer. In verse 8 of Psalm 16, David writes that he set the Lord always before him. That is, he lived each day, through each day, in His presence. Not some vague awareness of His presence, but a vibrant one. He had the spiritual sense of His always being with him, and that reality affected every level of his being, spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional. Many struggle to live in such an experience. They believe in Him, but they don't really find Him relevant to their day to day lives. Tiegreen says that this is because they don't seek Him intimately. Intimacy is the key to His presence and so, the key to His joy. This comes from our living in the atmosphere of His Holy Spirit and breathing in, and out, the air of that atmosphere. Despair and hopelessness have no place in such a life. If we dare to live that life, they will have no place in ours either.

Too many of His people are living in the stale air atmosphere of this fallen world instead of the atmosphere of heaven. The way out is to simply ask. Ask Him to bring us, you, out of the stale and into the fresh. Let Him stir His life into yours. We weren't created for the stale air of this fallen world, but the rarified air of the Kingdom. It will be the Kingdom Seekers who live in it, and in the joy that marks its atmosphere. Will you and I be among them? In His Presence there is fullness of joy. Breathe in, and breathe out that presence....and know His fullness of joy.

Blessings,

Pastor O