When Joy Does Not Come Quickly Enough

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
    but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12, NIV)

“One may experience sorrow during the night, but joy arrives in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5, NET)

“In thy right hand are pleasures forever.” (Psalm 16:11, LSB)

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Imagine a world where there are multiple, overlapping and seemingly never-ending sundowns and sunrises (many situations and conditions), and in that, you might get a different glimpse of the landscape of the human soul. It is a world where just as one difficulty may come to an end, a new one begins. And then, superimposed, are the more long-term difficulties that are set as a backdrop to all the constantly moving parts.

It might seem as though it is only one long night of the soul, with no end in sight to the sunrise.

I could have taken any one of the biblical fruits of the Spirit (which seem to me to also be things desired by the human soul) and picked it for my title. But, I plucked-and-picked joy.

For a moment, I will pluck-and-pick those remaining fruits from the well known passage and change up what the title of this piece might have been…

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law..”–Galatians 5:22-23, ESV)

• When Love Does Not Come Quickly Enough
• When Peace Does Not Come Quickly Enough
• When Patience Does Not Come Quickly Enough
• When Kindness Does Not Come Quickly Enough
• When Goodness Does Not Come Quickly Enough
• When Faithfulness Does Not Come Quickly Enough
• When Gentleness Does Not Come Quickly Enough
• When Self-Control Does Not Come Quickly Enough

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This morning, I think of a number of things. Were I to pick three to share below, these three they are:

• “One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call ‘the thing itself’. But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs: the rest is a name or an idea.”
  
  ― C. S. Lewis

• “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.”
  ― Henry Van Dyke

• “A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/ (listen) PIRR-ik) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.”
  ― Wikipedia

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Lord Jesus, You know when I lay down and when I arise and every thought that I have, You know and discern. You bear my pains and advocate for my joys and deliverances, because You are for me. Come quickly to me, Lord Jesus, and be not only my refuge and my strong tower, but help me to see whatever joy remains that is set before me. Help me to love You above all else, and to delight myself in You, that at the right time(s) You would grant me the desires of my waning heart.