“You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” Psalm 4:7
Devotion:
It is a bit of a surprise that this Psalm joins together a life where the world is turned upside down and joy. We might think these two things are mutually exclusive. However, David shows us that when God carries us along in this world and trains us to walk in His ways through the valley of the shadow of death, it creates a depth to our joy.
You might think that having your world turned upside down would make it impossible to experience joy. But the surprising expression from David towards the end of this Psalm is that his joy transcended the atmosphere of his circumstances. This is something the world doesn’t know anything about.
David not only expresses his joy in the midst of his troubles, but he also compares the joy that comes from God with the joy that comes from good circumstances. He teaches us that when God is the source of our joy, it is deeper and richer than the joy derived from a successful and abundant life. In other words, having God’s smile is everything. Even if we have nothing but God, we have more than those who seem to have it all.
If we want to be joyful, we should pursue God rather than a less complicated life. If aligning with Jesus disrupts our lives, we will find that God’s Spirit provides a supernatural joy. This is neither obvious nor easy, but it is part of what it means to walk by faith. On the surface, it may seem that joy is found when grain and wine abound, but in reality, joy is found when we have God’s smile upon us through Jesus Christ.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, Giver of joy, fill us with Your fruit. We are constantly tempted to seek our joy according to the ways of man, so guard our hearts. We long to know the joy that comes from You.
Looking inside and looking around, there is so much emptiness. Would You meet us in those places and show us that what we long for is You? Would You fill the void with Your presence?
We are so dependent upon You because we know that the joy of Christ is supernatural. Shape our values according to Your heart and set our desires according to what will lead us to Your river of delights. In Jesus’ name, we worship and pray. Amen.
