A Wellspring of Joy

The Lord has been so good to me this week. He has pulled my heart back from idols that I had been building up for a long time and is loosening my grip on them and allowing me to rest in his providence.

For many months, perhaps even years I have walked around with pasted-on joy outside while inside I was walking around in dread of the future. Well, the Lord opened my eyes to my sin this week. You see, I have lived and breathed the dream of PA school for a long time, then I find myself not doing so well on failing a test and wondering why I could lose my motivation to such a point that I am in the beginning stages of throwing my dreams away. And then it hit me (as evidenced in my last post): My dream is not PA school, it is being a wife and a mother.

Well, amidst many tears (over the grade and in all honesty, some tears of bitterness against the Lord) I sat down to my time with the Lord and every page I turned whether in the Bible, Daily Light, Jesus Calling, Morning and Evening, or William Cowper's hymns my idolatry hit me between the eyes. I have taken a desire given to me by the Lord and dwelt on it and fallen in love with it to the point that I am an adulterer. And to top that all off, I am cheating on the only person who can offer me an everlasting love and true joy!

Oh, what a wellspring of JOY I have in knowing that the Lord longs for my heart so much that he has pulled me from my adulterous ways!

This is one of the quotes that hit me between the eyes, it is from Morning and Evening on November 14th, from Genesis 29:26 ("Laban said, 'It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn.'"):
Everyone falls in love with happiness, and many would cheerfully work for fourteen years to enjoy it; but according to the rule of the Lord's kingdom, the Leah of real holiness must be loved in our soul before the Rachel of true happiness can be attained. Heaven stands not first but second, and only by persevering to the end can we win a portion in it. The cross must be carried before the crown can be worn. We must follow our Lord in His humiliation or we will never rest with Him in glory. 

My soul, what do you say--are you so vain as to hope to be an exception to the heavenly rule? Do you hope for reward without work, or honor without endeavor? Dismiss this idle expectation, and be content with the despised things for the sake of the sweet love of Jesus, which will more than repay you. In such a spirit, working and suffering, you will find afflictions grow sweet and hard things easy.