counting joys

it's late, and i have to wake early tomorrow... but sleep eludes me. i have a phrase whispering through my thoughts, as i try to lay here praying about all that life held out to me this past week. it's a phrase that is dear to me, taken directly from one of my favorite verses in Scripture... count it all joy. and as i have been doing for over a decade, i am laying here in bed with my head on my pillow, but my mind a thousand miles from it, trying to figure out this art of counting joys.

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James 1:2-4 says: "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

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when i first read those phrases years ago, the idea of counting joys resonated so soundly in me that it has been a sort of anchor verse ever since. i have written poems about it. i have composed it into notes on a piano. in my heart, i have known joy, and at times i have had to fight for it. it's amazing, how much is packed into that simple phrase, when you really let it sink in for a few thousand days.

first... count it all.

this is, for me, the r,esponsibility part of the phrase; to count it all. it seems to require an attention to detail, an acknowledgement of God's sovereignty over all.. an acknowledgement that there is nothing that goes on within my day that is outside the reach of His purpose and His plan. to count it all means that from the moment i wake up, until the moment i fall asleep, He cares about what is going on inside my head and inside my heart. every moment is an opportunity for growing closer to Him. from the little details to the big decisions, everything must be counted... all my thoughts, my actions - all must be discerned, accounted for, and ultimately surrendered.

and then, there's that other part... to count it all as joy.

some days, this feels tremendously easy. when i get my coffee in the morning, fit perfectly into clothes i feel good in, receive a promotion at work, get flowers from my husband, finally settle in for an evening in a freshly cleaned apartment... joy is easy to acknowledge when its found in flowers and coffee.

but then there inevitably comes a random Tuesday, when i wake up disoriented from bad dreams. i take my shower, go through all the daily morning routine, and head to work with my heart a bit heavier than i'd like. i have enough sense of God's presence to pray while i'm headed to work... but i still feel cloudy. discouraged. off. i try to work excellently... and i fail. i hit every red light on the way home, and we have somewhere to be at 7:00. when i change into different clothes, they don't look right. they don't feel right. nothing feels right. bring out the kleenex.

joy is not so easy to find when it's underneath all the mess... but it's there. it has always been there.

He has always been there, in everything, enabling us to count everything as joy - not for the sake of attaining the joy itself - but for the sake of knowing Him closer in those moments, who is the source of Joy.

so when we run into what we think is a wall... when conversations go awry. when things don't go as planned. when goodbyes are said much too often.

all of it, if counted, will produce good things in us. for joy, whose root is faith, will grow and produce endurance in us. and that endurance will without fail, make us complete... perfect, lacking nothing. whole.

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counting joys is a very relaxing thing to do, when it's 1:25 a.m. and you are ruminating over all yesterday's minutes. for all the wonderful minutes, i am thankful... and for all the other minutes too.

Lord, that every minute could be counted as unto You... that You could continue impressing on my heart the art of perceiving, of partaking, of acknowledging, and of surrendering... the art of counting all these things as joy.