Missionary Renegade: Daily Guide/Daily Devotion grow pray study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Wednesday, 29 July 2015 - “The joy from the Lord is your strength!”

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Daily Guide/Daily Devotion grow pray study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Wednesday, 29 July 2015 - “The joy from the Lord is your strength!”

Daily Scripture: Nehemiah 8:5 ‘Ezra opened the scroll where all the people could see him, because he was higher than all the people; when he opened it, all the people rose to their feet. 6 ‘Ezra blessed Adonai, the great God; and all the people answered, “Amen! Amen!” as they lifted up their hands, bowed their heads and fell prostrate before Adonai with their faces to the ground. 7 The L’vi’im Yeshua, Bani, Sherevyah, Yamin, ‘Akuv, Shabtai, Hodiyah, Ma‘aseiyah, K’lita, ‘Azaryah, Yozavad, Hanan and P’layah explained the Torah to the people, while the people remained in their places. 8 They read clearly from the scroll, in the Torah of God, translated it, and enabled them to understand the sense of what was being read.

9 Nechemyah the Tirshata, ‘Ezra the cohen and Torah-teacher and the L’vi’im who taught the people said to all the people, “Today is consecrated to Adonai your God; don’t be mournful, don’t weep.” For all the people had been weeping when they heard the words of the Torah. 10 Then he said to them, “Go, eat rich food, drink sweet drinks, and send portions to those who can’t provide for themselves; for today is consecrated to our Lord. Don’t be sad, because the joy of Adonai is your strength.”

Reflection Questions:
After decades of exile for Israel, the Persians conquered Babylon and let the Israelites go home. When Ezra read God’s law to the returned exiles, the people began to weep (the text does not say why). But Nehemiah used the occasion to say this was not a time for sadness. Instead, he said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Similarly, in Inside Out, Sadness tells Joy, “Without you, Riley can’t be happy.” Joy is a key to serving God well.

The Bible talks about joy amid persecution (Luke 6:22, 23), extreme poverty (2 Corinthians 8:2), “trials of any kind” (James 1:2), or unjust imprisonment (Acts 16:22-25). How do you define joy? How does it differ from ‘happiness”? How can the Holy Spirit’s presence make joy possible even under the varied conditions the Bible writers mentioned?
Pastor Eugene Peterson wrote, “One of the most interesting and remarkable things Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping. Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow.” The Israelites faced many challenges—they’d returned to a wrecked city and temple, with quite a few hostile neighbors. As Nehemiah said, God’s joy was their strength in and through the challenges. When have you felt the strength of God-given joy?

Daily Prayer:
Lord Jesus, as John Wesley lay dying, he reportedly said, “The best of all is, God is with us.” Help me to find the best, most deeply joyous part of every day in the fact that you are with me. Amen.Insights from Wendy Connelly

Wendy Connelly, wife to Mark and mom to Lorelei & Gryffin, is Community Outreach Director at the Leawood campus, a graduate student at Saint Paul School of Theology, Faith Walk columnist for the Kansas City Star, and co-leads the “Live and Let Think” dialogues at Resurrection Downtown.
“I sometimes feel happy and scared at the same time,” my daughter wisely confessed. Just as in the movie Inside Out, I could picture Joy and Fear both grasping at the control levers in her mind.
“Me too,” I said. “All at the same time. And you know, it’s okay to feel both ways at once.”
Where did we ever learn that emotions were meant to exist in a vacuum? That everything we felt boiled down to an “either/or”? The Bible supports a paradoxical idea: the “both/and.” Emotional highs and lows are often experienced together, even simultaneously. Psychologists call this the “Dual-Spectrum Model” of emotions. It’s why we can cry at graduations, laugh at funerals and, without an ounce of pretense (or guilt!), embrace God-given joy in the midst of life’s sorrows.
Feeling “both/and?” No apologies necessary.