THE LIFE YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED (Ortberg) - Ch. 4-7

The following devotions are based on the book THE LIFE YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED (Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People) by John Ortberg  (Zondervan, 2002)  All text in red italics is a direct quotation from the book. 

CHAPTER 7: ‘APPROPRIATE SMALLNESS’ –

The Practice of Servanthood

We are all worms.  But I do believe that I am a glowworm.  Winston Churchill

10.17.15  MESSIAH COMPLEX

Ezekiel 28:6-7 MSG

“‘Therefore, God, the Master, says: “‘Because you’re acting like a god, pretending to be a god, I’m giving fair warning: I’m bringing strangers down on you, the most vicious of all nations. They’ll pull their swords and make hash of your reputation for knowing it all. They’ll puncture the balloon of your god-pretensions…..

If you want to be your own god, you have to settle for living in a tiny universe where there is room for only one person. Your world could grow infinitely bigger if you were only willing to become, in the words of a friend of mine, ‘appropriately small’.  (108)

            Ortberg begins this chapter discussing ‘Messiah Complexes’ – people who think the world revolves around them.  His example is somewhat humorous, as it involves three men in a mental institution who all suffer from the delusion and we put together to see what would evolve.  But our world becomes very small when we fail to include others in it, which is the result of thinking we stand on the same pedestal as God.  So….what is ‘appropriate smallness’?  To me it means not belittling oneself of our own value and worth as children of God, made in the image of God, but remembering that we ARE NOT GOD!  The chapter goes on to discuss pride, humility, and servanthood. 

            We spent Thursday traveling to Bandon.  A long day as we included a stop in Portland to see my sister and family, a dinner visit with Jed in Salem, and then a night-time drive to Bandon.  Our initial drive south was beautiful with the crescent moon setting in the western glow of the sunset over the coastal mountains.  The stars came out in the darkened sky and I felt ‘appropriately small’ in the blackness of it all.  

10.18.15 THE OLDEST SIN – PRIDE

Proverbs 29:23

Pride lands you flat on your face; humility prepares you for honors.

• Signs of pride are vanity, stubbornness, exclusion.
• Vanity is perhaps the most common form of pride. It can be irritating and silly, but fortunately it is not the most dangerous. (109)
• Stubbornness is the pride that causes us to shun correction. (109)
• At the deepest level, pride is the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. (110)

            Vanity and stubbornness as signs of pride I am familiar with (and probably guilty of, although vanity isn’t one of my major faults!)  But I found EXCLUSION to be a profound insight as it relates to pride.  Yet it makes sense, for when we focus on self, we are in effect telling the God and others they don’t really matter as much as we do.  It isn’t an overt act, but more a subtle and on-going statement we make.  In excluding God, it is so easy to then shift to excluding others because we have lost the focus that keeps our pride in check.  Who am I excluding?  How can I work to keep my pride under control and concentrate on the needs of others? 

10.20.15   LETTING GOD BE GOD: Humility

Matthew 23:12 GNT

Whoever makes himself great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be made great.

James 1:19-21 MSG

In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

• In place of pride, Jesus invites us to a life of humility. (111)
• Humility involves a Copernican revolution of the soul, the realization that the universe does not revolve around us. (112)
• Humility, if ever we could grow into it, would not be a burden.  It would be an immense gift.  Humility is the freedom to stop trying to be what we’re not, or pretending to be what we’re not, and accepting our ‘appropriate smallness’.  In Luther’s words, humility is the decision to ‘let God be God.’ (112)
• One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother. (113)

          It has been a busy week in Bandon and between helping my mom and preparing for Sunday’s worship in Baker City (which I had forgotten was on my agenda!), I haven’t come back to my devotional readings on a timely manner.  But the first of these scriptures was the lesson for last Sunday in Bandon worship.  I am using SERVICE as my S word for my sermon. (I guess that is the next devotion!)  It isn’t that I haven’t been thinking humility and patience a lot lately, or the thought that "I am not what really matters.  What matters is my relationship with God and others."  Appropriate smallness doesn’t mean belittlement.  It means having the confidence to know you are NOT the focus, you are NOT God! 

            I found the last quote by Ortberg to be intriguing, perhaps because I had never thought of it before.  “It is hard to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother.”  It is a fine line between turning our focus outward without judgment.  A very fine line that many of us cross over without realizing it.  And with judgment comes exclusion. And that takes us right back to Pride again!  

10.21.15  SERVICE

“More than any other single way the grace of humility is worked into our lives through the Discipline of service…Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness.  The flesh whines against service, but screams against hidden service.  It strains and pulls for honor and recognition.”  Richard Foster 

• When Jesus came in the form of a servant, he was not disguising who God is.  He was revealing who God is. (115)
• The primary reason Jesus calls us to servanthood is not just because other people need our service.  It is because of what happens to US when we serve. (117)
• We must minister out of weakness.  That is the kind of servanthood Jesus calls us to – a society of sinners helping each other. (118)

10.29.15  HOW TO ENTER A LIFE OF SERVANTHOOD

Well, as you can see by the date of this entry, life has gotten a bit hectic and while I have drawn a few prayers, I haven’t gotten back to finish off this particular chapter of Ortberg’s book.  Because I want to record and remember these notes, I am going to go ahead and post everything from the rest of this chapter at once.  Ortberg gives five specific areas for one to focus in terms of servanthood: 

From EOP Meeting

MINISTRY OF THE MUNDANE

• The opportunity is offered to us countless times a day….give yourselves to those who can bring you no status or clout.  (118)
• Authentic community is characterized perhaps more than anything else by mutual servanthood and submission.  When Jesus said the last shall be first, and the least shall be great, and the slave the greatest of all, he wasn’t giving orders.  He was simply describing the truth about God’s kind of community and how different it looks from the way things generally work in our world.  (120)

Monday prayers for those in heart surgery plus....

MINISTRY OF INTERRUPTION (AVAILABILITY)

• Sometimes we must live with the ‘latch off the door’….to serve at a moment’s notice when it isn’t convenient. (120)
• Generally speaking, the higher our grandiosity quotient,  the greater our need for the ministry of mundane or interruption. (121)

EMBRACING OUR WEAKNESSNESS AND LIMITATIONS

• Obviously, I could cover my schedule over with a veneer of spirituality; I could try to convince myself that it was all about service – but it was grandiosity all the same.  I didn’t want to have to admit I have severe limitations.  I didn’t want to acknowledge my need for things like rest.  I didn’t want to admit I wasn’t Superman. (122)

Ah, the glory of fall leaves in the yard.....

MINISTRY OF ‘HOLDING YOUR TONGUE’

• Sometimes we are speaking just to build ourselves up, not really to make a worthwhile point. 
• Perhaps the least-practiced form of servanthood today is what Bonhoeffer called ‘the ministry of holding one’s tongue.’:  Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words….It must be a decisive rule of every Christian fellowship[ that each individual is prohibited from saying much that occurs to him! (DB)

MINISTRY OF BEARING

• The ministry of bearing with one another is learning to hear God speak through difficult people.  ….Bearing does not require becoming best friends… (125)
• I am called to free people – repeatedly if necessary – from the little mental prisons to which I consign them.  (125)

CHAPTER 6: INTERRUPTING HEAVEN:

The Practice of Prayer

Prayer unites the soul to God.  –Julian of Norwich

10.9.15  PRAYER CHANGES THINGS

Revelation 8:1 VOICE

When the Lamb cracked open the seventh and final seal, a great silence filled all heaven penetrating everything for about half an hour. 

• One of God’s most amazing attributes is that he is humble enough to accept people when they turn to him in sheer desperation, even when they have been ignoring him for years. (92)
• All of heaven stops so the prayers of the saints – your prayers and mine, every one of them – can rise before God and be heard.(93)
• We may never know the true effects of prayer this side of death.  But we do know this: History belongs to the intercessors.  (95)

  

          In the Revelation passage, all heaven stops as the prayers of the people are heard by God.  All heaven stops to listen.  Our prayers are THAT important to God.  I remember reading a book on near-death experiences and the author related the vision of streamers flowing out of the orb of earth and she realized later they were wisps of prayers bonded together reaching out.  God HEARS our prayers.  God knows our prayers before we pray them, but it is in the act of praying that we bond ourselves to God and heaven stops.  We probably don't know the effects of most of our prayers.  Sometimes we get that rare glimpse into answered prayer so clear cut that we are blown away by the power of the Almighty.  Most of the time...we pray and trust that God will act...in God time and as God knows best.  

10.10.15  Teach Me to Pray

Luke 11:1 GNT

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray….”

Prayer is learned behavior.  Nobody is born an expert at it.  No one ever masters prayer. (96)

The prayer Jesus taught was simple and direct.  It lays a foundation for what God needs and wants to hear.  Praying takes practice for the relationship with God to grow to a comfortable level on our part.  But the beauty is that God doesn't care about our words or speech patterns or syntax.  God already knows what is on our heart.  God just wants us to stop and talk, to stop and listen.  

10.11.15  Prayer Patterns

Mark 1:35 GNT

Very early the next morning, long before daylight, Jesus got up and left the house. He went out of town to a lonely place, where he prayed.

• To learn how to pray we need two things: a time and a place.  Start with 5 minutes a day – no more.  Place free of distractions, place of beauty (Jesus often prayed in natural settings), object of focus (candle?), same space every day makes it sacred.
• Like any other demanding activity, prayer requires a certain level of preparation. (99)

Time and place.  On a regular basis.  Planned.  This is what helps us develop a prayer pattern.  I have a time, but I have allowed other distractions to enter into that time.  Since I use the laptop often, a scroll through Facebook interfers with my prayers and meditations.  Or another Soduko puzzle is calling first.  My God-time should always be first, undistracted.  Drawing my prayers helps me focus while I am actually writing the words, but I think I need to work on a more private place to make sacred, especially when I am still in my corner when the rest of the house 'arises' and my prayer time is often interrupted.  I need a place where I can listen as well as speak to God.  

10.12.15  Simple Prayer

 ‘In prayer we must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.’ - CS Lewis

• In prayer, there is often a gap between what I am supposed to pray for and what I am really thinking about.  Removing this gap is what simple prayer is about. (100) 
• It may well be that when your mind wanders, it is wandering to what your heart most needs to speak with God about. (102)

I picked a labyrinth mandala design today as it has
room for the mind to wander!  Lord's Prayer included!

          God wants our heart and soul, not flowery words from a script.  He wants us to voice our inner fears, our desires, our pleas and it doesn't matter how trivial they may sound or be.  A simple prayer is what is truly on our heart at THAT VERY MOMENT.  The more we pray, the wider our circle of concern may become, but initially we shouldn't feel 'inadequate' if our heart is focused on our immediate hurts, concerns, and family or friends.  
          The Lord's Prayer is short and simple - yet it includes words of praise, gratitude, confession, and intercession.  You can sum it up with 'God, you are great. Show us how to live. Thanks for our daily needs.  Forgive us as we forgive others.  Keep us safe.  Amen!'  Nothing fancy about those words, but they mean everything.  
          Even with a brief and simple prayer, it is easy for the mind to wander.  If our mind is constantly wandering to the SAME PLACE, perhaps we need to consider that God taking us there.  Maybe God is trying to tell us something!  

10.13.15   Intercessory Prayer
James 5:16 MSG
Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

• When I intercede for others, the circle of my concern becomes expanded a little beyond myself.  More than that….God is at work in ways I do not understand. (104)
• Prayer is the concrete expression of the fact that we are invited into a relationship with God….knitting of the human heart together with the heart of God.  (106)

          I love the image of knitting with God - our hearts as one.  The yarn is our bundle of intercessory prayers.  The more we offer prayer on behalf of others, the more we knit our heart with God.  That is a powerful image!  It is an image that is integral to the concept of prayer shawls and those who knit and pray on a daily basis.  For today's picture,  I was going to try to draw my daily prayers into the yarn itself, but that was too hard, so once again, my prayers are in the human figure. 
          We often pray when we will never know the outcome of our prayers.  I will have someone comment to me, please include so-and-so in your prayers.  I write the name daily, yet I may never even SEE this person for months to inquire how said individual is doing. I just keep including the name!   I have prayers on my list that I include just to remind God to be at work in their lives in ways they or I may never understand.  But when I write the name, for that brief moment, my circle of love is just a little larger and God IS AT WORK! 
          And now....time to pick up my hypothetical knitting needles and a skein of yarn and PRAY!!   Just imagine how big that heart could be if everyone knit with God!

CHAPTER 5: AN UNHURRIED LIFE – 

The Practice of ‘Slowing’

People nowdays take time far more seriously than eternity.  (Thomas Kelley)

10.5.15  The Disease:  Hurry Sickness

Luke 8:14 GNT

The seeds that fell among thorn bushes stand for those who hear; but the worries and riches and pleasures of this life crowd in and choke them, and their fruit never ripens.

• Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day….the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith.  It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. (77)
• We worship at the shrine of the Golden Arches, not because they sell good food or even cheap food, but because it is fast food. (78)
• Jesus urged his disciples to take time out.  Following Jesus cannot be done at a sprint.  If we want to follow someone, we can’t go faster than the one who is leading. (79)

SYMPTOMS OF HURRY SICKNESS:

a.     Constantly speeding up daily activities.

b.     Multi-tasking

c.      Clutter

d.     Superficiality  -- We have traded wisdom for information, depth for breadth. (81)

e.     An inability to love -- Love takes time!

f.       Sunset fatigue  -- Just too tired, too drained, or too preoccupied to love the people to whom we have made the deepest promises. (83)

          Where are my spiritual seeds growing?  Are the thorns of hurry sickness crowding out my time with God?  I have to plead guilty to some of these symptoms.  There is a difference between rush, rush to get somewhere and to leisurely get there on time without

inconveniencing others.  I HAVE made the choice to not wear a watch for the past three years, which is liberating.  I do occasionally glance at my phone, but unless I have an appointment, it doesn’t really matter.  I multitask as a challenge, but at times it is my undoing (especially as I get older!) 

            More is NOT always better!  More done in a day isn’t necessary a sign of success.  How often do we say we would like to help with this or that if only we had the time, but we fail to MAKE the time happen.  And yet, help is love and that is the most important thing for which to have time!  I found the symptom of sunset fatigue interesting….when parents get home at the end of a long day and fail to give the time necessary to the very people they love the most – each other and their children. 

            The first half of this chapter identified the symptoms.  Tomorrow we will look at some ways to SLOW DOWN!  

10.6.15  PRACTICE PATIENT WAITING
Jeremiah 2:25 MSG
Slow down.  Take a deep breath.  What the hurry?  Why wear yourself out?  Just what are you after anyway?"  

• "Slowing" involves cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait. 
• Drive in the slow lane. Fast from honking. Eat slowly. Get in the long check-out lane. Don't wear a watch. 
• Tell God we are trusting him to enable us to accomplish all we need to get done. (84)

          Ortberg makes two major suggestions for Slowing Down.  The first is to practice patience in waiting.  Deliberately select the longer check-out line.  Breath deep and say a prayer for each person in line while you wait, a prayer for whatever their circumstances might be.  Sing a joyful tune while waiting at the traffic light.  Make conscious decisions to put oneself in a position that demands patience.  Prayerful waiting becomes a spiritual moment with God.  It turns the focus from oneself to the divine.  What better way to wait?  What better way to sneak mini-moments with God into the day?  

10.7.15  A SOLITUDE SOJOURN - DAILY

Matthew 14:23 MSG

With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.

• Solitude is the one place where we can gain freedom from the forces of society that will otherwise relentlessly mold us.  (84)
• At its heart, solitude is primarily about not doing something. (86)

In solitude, I get rid of my scaffolding.  Scaffolding is all the stuff we use to keep ourselves propped up, to convince ourselves that we are important or ok. -Henri Nouwen
          There is alone time and there is lonely time.  Not the same.  We NEED alone time with God.  We need time to stop and listen.  While I was learning to read the construction plans last week, I had questions and I kept explaining to Steve my thought processes.  Finally, Steve just said, "Stop talking and listen!"  How often does God tell us the same thing?  Stop talking, stop doing, stop and listen!!  
          Ortberg suggests two daily scheduled times of solitude - morning and night.  For 10-15 minutes to order or review the day, to hear God, to pray for others, in essence ....TO STOP AND LISTEN!  I try to begin my day with God, but in Nouwen's words, I don't always get rid of the scaffolding.  What is my prop?  The laptop!  I often get waylaid in checking an email or Facebook picture, playing a game.  Other scaffolding might be a schedule or phone - devices of society that threaten to mold who we are if we don't take the opportunities to put them aside and just sit with God.  

10.8.15  AN EXTENDED TIME OF SOLITUDE
Mark 6:31 GNT
“Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and you can rest a while.”
There is no clock, no matter how good it may be, that doesn't need resetting and rewinding twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.  In addition, at least once a year it must be taken apart to remove the dirt clogging it, straighten out bent parts, and repair those worn out.  In like manner, every morning and evening a man who really takes care of his heart must rewind it for God's service...Moreover, he must often reflect on his condition in order to reform and improve it.  Finally, at least once a year he must take it apart and examine every piece in detail, that is every affection and passion, in order to repair whatever defects there may be.  (Francis de Sales)
          I liked this comparison of our hearts to a clock.  Obviously the digital age has changed some of de Sales analogy, but the essence remains the same.  There is a need to annually take an extended time alone to reflect, take our heart and soul and lay it bare before God.  There is a need for a tune-up in our vehicles, a little maintenance.  And that is what an extended time of solitude can be.  It might be a full day alone in a structured way (to avoid the constant pull or support of our scaffolding!) or a multi-day affair in a retreat setting.  During his YAV year, Luke experienced a desert sojourn - literally in the desert!  It is sometimes frightening to be alone in this manner, which means it is a good time to work on trusting God.  Our imaginations can run wild, which means we need to focus and reflect on things beyond our immediate situation.  
            Sometimes a long walk on the beach can be a sojourn of solitude or a hike alone in the hills.  I participated in a women's retreat this year which was good, but women don't tend to schedule ALONE time into a retreat....too much conversation takes place!   It might be time to consider how I can work an extended time of solitude into my life.   

Chapter 4: A “DEE DAY DAY” – 

The Practice of Celebration

Joy is the serious business of heaven. CS Lewis

9.30.15  CELEBRATE GOD! 

Philippians 4:4 MSG

Celebrate God all day, every day!  I mean revel in God!

• Joy is God’s basic character….God is the happiest being in the universe…The sorrow of God, like the anger of God, is his temporary response to a fallen world. (63)
• The problem with people….is not that we are too happy for God’s taste, but that we are not happy enough. (64)

“To miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for your existence.” (Lewis Smedes)

            I love the word JOY.  Short, sweet, and full of punch!  And, unfortunately in the realm of Christianity, so often ignored under the thought that  believers should be stoic, law-abiding, rigid, etc. etc.  And yet the Bible is literally FULL of verses where JOY overflows.  God is happiest when we are happy.  And we are happiest when we focus not on self, but on the God we see in others, the God we see in serving others.  I love that Ortberg begins his list of Spiritual Practices or Disciplines with CELEBRATION. 

            The Hebrew calendar is one of celebrations, feast days where the people gathered to eat and rejoice together, remembering all that God had done.  It seems so often today we still celebrate with food and family, but we have forgotten the focus on God in it all.  Our celebrations have become quite self-centered. 

            Seek joy.  Look for opportunities to put a smile on both your face and in the heart of others.  Practice being joyful in the smallest of ways.  It is one of the disciplines we can learn from children, who find happiness in the simplest of moments. 

10.1.15  JOY=STRENGTH

Nehemiah 8:9-10 MSG 

“Go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink; and share it with those who don’t have anything: This day is holy to God. Don’t feel bad. The joy of God is your strength!”

• Joyfulness is a learned skill.  You must take responsibility for your own joy. (66)
• People who want to pursue joy especially need to practice the discipline of celebration…when we celebrate, we exercise our ability to see and feel goodness in the simplest gifts of God. (67)

           "This day is holy to God".... The term holiday comes from 'Holy Day" - a day to celebrate the gifts of the Almighty.  Nehemiah was telling the people to prepare a feast and revel WITH THOSE WHO HAVE NOTHING!  Hmmmm.  How often do we invite the poor to our celebrations?  The joy of God is your strength,....WHEN YOU SHARE THE JOY.  Sharing the joy is one way we can take responsibility for our joy, because when we share joy, we are able to retain that joy as well.  

            I wrote yesterday of finding joy in the simple gifts of God.  Yesterday I found joy in the most unlikely of places – the porta potty at the Habitat Build.  It sounds silly, but the newly cleaned potty looked like blue bubble bath when I went in to use it.  It made me smile.  I shared the bubble bath concept with the gals painting and we all had a good laugh.  Simple things.  Simple gifts.  Nothing is too simple for God.  Everything can bring joy in some way or another.  Find joy, share joy, and you will find the strength of community in that joy.  

10.2.15  BEGIN NOW

Psalm 118:24 VOICE

This is the day the Eternal God has made;
    let us celebrate and be happy today.

• How can I embrace joy in a world of suffering?.....It is precisely here that we make one of the most surprising discoveries.  Often it is the people closest to suffering who have the most powerful joy. (68)
• If we don’t rejoice today, we will not rejoice at all….This is the Dee Dah Day. (69)

            I can’t help but think of my friend Genia.  She is in the middle of chemo treatments for uterine cancer yet she STILL radiates joy when you see her.  It is in her makeup and it is the strength that is carrying her through this time of suffering.  Each day, every day, is a day to find joy and she is actively seeking it.  Not tomorrow, not when things start going better, TODAY.  THIS IS THE DAY!  Rejoice in it! 

            Those who start their day in joy find the day progresses in a more positive note.  Dee Dah Day is the term Ortberg uses because that is what his young daughter called her moments of joy – she did the Dee Dah Dance of unleashed glee whenever something made her happy.  When was the last time we ‘danced with joy’?  Psalm 30:11 says God changed lament into whirling dance….may we begin each day with a Dee Dah Dance if only for a God who is present and loves us. 

10.3.15 MINGLE WITH JOY-CARRIERS

Proverbs 15:30 MSG

A twinkle in the eye means joy in the heart, and good news makes you feel fit as a fiddle. 

• Make a joy appointment to spend significant time with….life-enhancing, joy-producing people. (69-70)        

            Other translations of Proverbs 15:30 write, “Smiling faces make us feel happy.”  When we surround ourselves with joy, we can’t help but become more joyful.  But do we schedule such time deliberately?  We can make excuses or think “that isn’t REALLY a spiritual thing” but JOY is very definitely of a spiritual nature.  The ability to really rejoice every day must be practiced and a good ‘coach’ can make a difference.  Who are my joy-producers?  Can I be a joy-coach for someone else?  Can I dance the Dee-Dah Dance??  

10.4.15 FINAL JOYFUL PRACTICES

Isaiah 55:12 VOICE

For you will go out in joy, be led home in peace.
        And as you go the land itself will break out in cheers;    The mountains and the hills will erupt in song,
        and the trees of the field will clap their hands.

• Devote one day a week to specific acts of celebration so that eventually joy will enfuse your entire life…..as you do these things, give thanks to God for his wonderful goodness. (70)
• Ask for God’s help in declaring a “Week of Jubilee” and unplug the TV for a week. (72)

Rick has noted that when we are on the road and don’t see the news as often, we don’t miss it.  We don’t have to view the depressing highlights over and over again….we stay up on current events without letting them drag us down. On Friday we heard disturbing news about a campus shooting in Oregon.  I checked some details, but over and over that night the media worked the suffering from every angle.  If Rick hadn’t been watching a Steelers game, it would have been time to unplug!

Ortberg’s other idea is to take a day each week that is Joy-Producing just for oneself.  Engage on activities that make you happy.  Visit a joyful friend, cook a happy meal, take a hike, get a manicure, whatever!  Do these sound like spiritual disciplines?  Perhaps not, but JOY is CENTRAL TO OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE! 

I love the Isaiah passage.  I think a church should sing this as their benediction every week!  “We go OUT in JOY!”  And when we seek it, we will find it.  I was amazed this week as I wrote on this chapter, the number of FB posts about JOY, the movie trailers had an ad singing, “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Down in My Heart”, the word seemed to shout from all around!  Perhaps the trees were clapping their orange and red-hued hands!