Always Joyful? a devotion

God has been showing my how gratitude can help me in my journey through life and although the lessons are sometimes very painful they are also extremely beneficial.

At the start of 2024 I had arranged a special event for a loved one and it was a great night out. Although they said ‘thank you’ to me they trashed talked the next day, to my face, declaring all the things that they didn’t like and I felt so hurt. After they left where we had been staying together, I had some time alone to unpack my feelings and I wrote:

Lord I’m sitting here looking at a peaceful harbour knowing You have placed me right here in this moment, given me this quiet space to reflect, and I ask You to open my ears to hear what You have to say. I ask You to still my screaming thoughts, steady my racing heart, and pour forth Your words of wisdom. Help me to see the log in my own eye and stop criticising my loved one for the speck in theirs. Help me to stop criticising and condemning them. (Inspired by Matthew 7:1-5). Heal the words that have hurt my heart, let the words be wiped from my memory. Lord, I sense that You have a lesson here for me and I want to apologise to You for being SO incredibly insensitive to You and ungrateful towards You. I see now that gratitude is SO much more than words, sometimes it can be in what I leave unspoken – comparisons, disappointments, angst… I see now that focusing on those things devalues the moment, reduces the blessing I have received.

Jesus, I ask You to help me to always be joyful,
assist me to rejoice and delight in my faith.
Yes! Let joy be my everlasting feast,
a sustenance that assists me to embrace joy in EVERY season of life.
Holy Spirit prompt me to make my whole life, every moment and aspect, a prayer.
Assist me to be unceasing and persistent in my prayer life,
to be thankful in ALL circumstances, in each and every situation.
Yes! Let gratitude flow from my heart.
Almighty God, help me to grasp hold of Your endless and abounding joy.
I endeavour to give You thanks no matter what happens in life.
Through continuous prayer I can grasp hold of the wonderful joy within,
a beautiful gift that has been given to me by Christ Jesus.
May His light within me radiate for all to see.
(Inspired by 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 AMP, NLT & TPT including TPT footnotes.)

Silence

A few months later as I spent time going over this lesson I felt that I needed to delve deep here. I sensed God had something to show me around leaving things unspoken. I was reminded about the instructions Joshua gave to the Israelites before they marched around Jericho – for the first 6 days they were instructed to not utter a single word (Joshua 6:10). It seems like a harsh thing to say but when we read back over the story of them in the wilderness we can see many examples of their grumbling and complaining and how that led them into trouble, so I recon that’s why they needed to be silent here. I also see that grumbling and complaining is often my default as I wait and wait and wait for my promise to come to pass. When it was recently mentioned to me that I might be facing another challenge I feel SO overwhelmed. All I wanted to do was complain. I see that God is showing me the importance of sometimes being silent. I’m reminded that even a fool can seem wise when they don’t speak, that there are times in life that we have ‘bite our tongue’ to stop it from spilling forth foolishness (Proverbs 17:28). In my devotion today (The Bible Recap) as Tara-Leigh Cobble briefly unpacked Psalm 62 she explained that David was surrounded by betrayal and he didn’t know who to talk to, so David turns to God and pours out his heart to him because he knows that God is powerful and loving and can be trusted to do what is right. I realise just how much wisdom I need from God for SO many things but for today it is obvious that I need wisdom with words – knowledge to know when I need to be silent and the right words to say when I am to speak. I also pray:

Lord God, help me to trust You each and every moment of my life. Thank You that I can pour out my heart to You, telling You about ALL my troubles and heart-longings. Thank You for the promise that You long to help me. Thank You for being a refuge for me, my biggest struggles and deepest longings are safe with You. Let ALL that is within me fall silent before the One I love. Let my heart still its frantic pace as I wait patiently for the Lord to rescue me. Let my soul rejoice knowing that He will NEVER abandon me or fail me! Yes, my hope is in Him therefore I can wait with eager expectation. (Inspired by Psalms 62:8,5)

Everlasting Ways

Almost a month later I had the chance to share my struggle with a trusted friend. I shared about the intense emotional experience I had gone through, and as I discussed it briefly with her I realised just how much healing God had done because I didn’t have that ball of hurt and anxiety anymore. I am so grateful for the work being done in my life.

“Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it.” A. W. Tozer

I want to follow Tozer’s advice and let gratitude be my constant, daily, offering to God. I realise that theses lessons in gratitude will continue and I am sure that there will be many more that God reveals to me and so this is my prayer:
Lord God, I invite You to search me thoroughly. Examine me through and through. You know my heart and my anxious thoughts, reveal and heal the wicked ways within me. Take my hand and lead me in Your glorious everlasting ways (Psalm 139:23-24). Jesus, I ask You to show me the path of Life, let me taste the fullness of joy that is found in Your presence (Psalms‬ ‭16:11‬). Take my hand and show me how to live in the abundant Life that You offer (John 10:10). I know that You are the Good Shepherd and You promise that if I trust and passionately pursue You, I will find that I lack no good thing (Psalm 23, Psalms‬ ‭34:10‬ ‭b, James‬ ‭1:2-4‬ ‭AMP ‬‬‬‬). So help me to trust You more and more each and every day. Holy Spirit, I invite You to remind me, testify and confirm what Jesus has done. Write God’s laws upon my heart, deeply embed them there. Fasten God’s commandments into my thoughts, renew my mind and help me to remember ALL that God has done (Hebrews 10:15-16). Change me, shape and mould me I pray in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.‬‬‬‬‬

What is something that you are thankful for? I’d love to hear how gratitude impacts your life.

Many blessings,

Keona

If you would like to read another of my devotions based on gratitude click here.