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John 11:25–27 (ESV): 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Abba,

This is where our hearts need to rest.  The weight of life gets so heavy at times.  The sorrows and losses cling to us like moss to a tree.  The current trajectory of life may not suggest that the heaviness and sorrows are going to lessen any time soon.  When this is true, what begins to happen is that we begin to focus too heavily on those losses, that heaviness.  The weariness sits upon our bones like cancer.  It makes it hard to see anything else.  

It may not be that we have lost hope. We may not have.  We may very well still trust You.  We DO still know You.  We DO still love You.  We have not lost our faith.

But what we begin to lose is the desire and will to continue enduring the heartaches and challenges life.  In our hearts, we want to keep serving You, we want to keep being faithful to the call You have given us. The desire is there.  

The power, the strength, the motivation, however is not.  That is what we begin to miss.  We find it so hard to continue….and to continue with joy.

The weight and heaviness of sorrow and loss rob us of our joy.  We lack joy in the journey, joy in the struggle, joy in the ministry of serving.  

The truth of these scriptures OUGHT to fill us with joy, however.  They OUGHT to give us a passionate excitement, hopefulness, and delight no matter the circumstances. You ARE the resurrection and the life, Jesus.  You ARE worth every sorrow and loss, every weight of heaviness that we bear, for You WILL bring life out of it all.  

And yet, we can still struggle to find it.  

This is where our hearts need to turn….to finding joy…to dwelling in joy…to finding a delight in life that sees JOY more than it sees sorrow.  

Abba, forgive us for so focusing on the losses, on the sorrows, on the weariness that we lose sight of the “Joy of the Lord”.  Let us find it once more and bask in the warmth of its rays.