The joy of...Joy!
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." James 1:2-3.
"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" Philipians 4:4
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22
"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the Earth." Psalm 100:1
I could go on. There are likely hundreds of references to joy in the bible. Many of them seem to make little sense: Consider it joy when you face trials? Rejoice in suffering? Joy is something we rarely talk about in religious circles these days. We love to talk about whatever the sin de jour is, or which translation of the Bible is best. We spend hours scouring the scriptures for slivers of truth we can use as a weapon the next time we debate this or that. We really like to cling to verses that provide a crutch for our belief about a certain subject.
We often forget about the invaluable byproduct of salvation that is JOY! Religion has always got to be so serious, solemn, melancholy. How in the world do we miss out on the Joy?! It's everywhere in the holy scriptures. From Genesis to the Revelation, there's an undercurrent of joy. In good times: rejoice. In sad times: Rejoice! When things are boring: REJOICE! But why don't we talk about joy? I'm guessing our spiritual lives are likely somewhat devoid of joy much of the time. At a minimum, the needle on our joy gauge is dangerously close to the E.
We just completed another season of holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, (insert your favorite here). During this season we have tried to remember to exercise our "Joy Muscles" as we celebrate all those things for which we are thankful, especially the birth of our Savior. Unfortunately, many of us will pack up our "Joy Muscles" along with the Christmas tree and all the decorations, not to be seen for another 11 months or so.
How does this relate to Isabella? Well I'll tell you. Better yet, I'll show you.
There's a lot of joy in car building. There's a fair amount of suffering too, if I'm honest. However, there's nothing like the first time that engine fires up after all that work. That's my dad, Johnny, in the video. He was instrumental in helping me get Isabella going. As a fact, that's another HUGE source of joy to me: getting to work on stuff with my dad. This will be something I'll remember as long as I live. What you don't see in this video is my eyes welling up and me dancing like a fool at the first firing of that engine. This was October of 2016--2 years after Isabella's arrival. That's a lot of long, dirty afternoons, late nights, frustrating failures, and countless attempts at solving little problems here and there to get to this point. It was at this point that I realized this thing MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK!
There's not much that tops that as far as car building is concerned. Of course, this is nothing like watching your beautiful wife bring a baby into this world, or a first date, a first kiss, or whatever you can remember from your wedding day. But, it's pretty awesome, non the less.
The only thing I can think of that can top it is...well, I'll show you.
Yep, that's the first time she moved under her own power. And, to my wife's surprise, stopped under her own power too. :) That was the best moment so far in this journey. Why? because so many things had to come together for this to work: it meant that all that time we spent rebuilding suspension, steering, brakes, electrical, fuel delivery, cooling, transmission, charging...it all worked! To boot: WE made it work. We accomplished something.
Ok, Andy, you say...It's easy to be joyful when things are going right. What about that "Rejoice in suffering" part? Well,, I'd say you didn't see the 3 hours we spent trying to figure out why that dang motor wouldn't fire, or the motor oil puked all over the road and driveway, or the rear end that broke welds and folded up on us. There were lots of issues for sure, but the joy of watching that thing finally fire for the first time was worth a thousand bad days!
I think maybe that's the point of the scriptures as well. I think we all know it's easy when things are going well. It's not hard to rejoice when the boss says "atta boy or atta girl'." When your kids behave in public, piece of cake! But to rejoice when you've lost a loved one? You're kidding, right? Even when there's not enough $ in the account to pay all our bills? YES! That's what we're to do! You know why? Because all this stuff is temporary. We need to rest in the promise that God loves us and will provide for us and care for us, ESPECIALLY in the rough patches.
So remember, without the bad times, the good times wouldn't be as good. Let's try and exercise our "Joy Muscles" for more than just a couple of months in 2018. Who knows, a little more joy in our lives might do us some good.
Keep wrenching! (or whatever you do in your hobby).
Andy
P.S. If you have something to share concerning Joy, I'd love to hear from you. Ideas on how to have more joy would be especially appreciated. Or if you just want to share something joyful in your life, please comment. I'd love to share in your joy.
"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" Philipians 4:4
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22
"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the Earth." Psalm 100:1
I could go on. There are likely hundreds of references to joy in the bible. Many of them seem to make little sense: Consider it joy when you face trials? Rejoice in suffering? Joy is something we rarely talk about in religious circles these days. We love to talk about whatever the sin de jour is, or which translation of the Bible is best. We spend hours scouring the scriptures for slivers of truth we can use as a weapon the next time we debate this or that. We really like to cling to verses that provide a crutch for our belief about a certain subject.
We often forget about the invaluable byproduct of salvation that is JOY! Religion has always got to be so serious, solemn, melancholy. How in the world do we miss out on the Joy?! It's everywhere in the holy scriptures. From Genesis to the Revelation, there's an undercurrent of joy. In good times: rejoice. In sad times: Rejoice! When things are boring: REJOICE! But why don't we talk about joy? I'm guessing our spiritual lives are likely somewhat devoid of joy much of the time. At a minimum, the needle on our joy gauge is dangerously close to the E.
We just completed another season of holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, (insert your favorite here). During this season we have tried to remember to exercise our "Joy Muscles" as we celebrate all those things for which we are thankful, especially the birth of our Savior. Unfortunately, many of us will pack up our "Joy Muscles" along with the Christmas tree and all the decorations, not to be seen for another 11 months or so.
How does this relate to Isabella? Well I'll tell you. Better yet, I'll show you.
There's a lot of joy in car building. There's a fair amount of suffering too, if I'm honest. However, there's nothing like the first time that engine fires up after all that work. That's my dad, Johnny, in the video. He was instrumental in helping me get Isabella going. As a fact, that's another HUGE source of joy to me: getting to work on stuff with my dad. This will be something I'll remember as long as I live. What you don't see in this video is my eyes welling up and me dancing like a fool at the first firing of that engine. This was October of 2016--2 years after Isabella's arrival. That's a lot of long, dirty afternoons, late nights, frustrating failures, and countless attempts at solving little problems here and there to get to this point. It was at this point that I realized this thing MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK!
There's not much that tops that as far as car building is concerned. Of course, this is nothing like watching your beautiful wife bring a baby into this world, or a first date, a first kiss, or whatever you can remember from your wedding day. But, it's pretty awesome, non the less.
The only thing I can think of that can top it is...well, I'll show you.
Yep, that's the first time she moved under her own power. And, to my wife's surprise, stopped under her own power too. :) That was the best moment so far in this journey. Why? because so many things had to come together for this to work: it meant that all that time we spent rebuilding suspension, steering, brakes, electrical, fuel delivery, cooling, transmission, charging...it all worked! To boot: WE made it work. We accomplished something.
Ok, Andy, you say...It's easy to be joyful when things are going right. What about that "Rejoice in suffering" part? Well,, I'd say you didn't see the 3 hours we spent trying to figure out why that dang motor wouldn't fire, or the motor oil puked all over the road and driveway, or the rear end that broke welds and folded up on us. There were lots of issues for sure, but the joy of watching that thing finally fire for the first time was worth a thousand bad days!
I think maybe that's the point of the scriptures as well. I think we all know it's easy when things are going well. It's not hard to rejoice when the boss says "atta boy or atta girl'." When your kids behave in public, piece of cake! But to rejoice when you've lost a loved one? You're kidding, right? Even when there's not enough $ in the account to pay all our bills? YES! That's what we're to do! You know why? Because all this stuff is temporary. We need to rest in the promise that God loves us and will provide for us and care for us, ESPECIALLY in the rough patches.
So remember, without the bad times, the good times wouldn't be as good. Let's try and exercise our "Joy Muscles" for more than just a couple of months in 2018. Who knows, a little more joy in our lives might do us some good.
Keep wrenching! (or whatever you do in your hobby).
Andy
P.S. If you have something to share concerning Joy, I'd love to hear from you. Ideas on how to have more joy would be especially appreciated. Or if you just want to share something joyful in your life, please comment. I'd love to share in your joy.
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