Rejoice at All Times

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” –Philippians 4:4 (ESV).

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (ESV).

Sometimes I find the Lord’s commands extremely hard to follow.  Paul’s statement of the Lord’s will in Philippians 4:4 and in 1 Thessalonians 5:16 is one such command:   “Rejoice always.”  I want to argue and question the Lord:  I am to “always rejoice” Lord?  What about when troubles beset on every hand?  When my own perceived needs are immanent and I don’t know how I will meet them?  When others turn to me for help and I am so mired in my own load of deadlines and things to do that I cannot see the light of day?  Rejoice then, Lord?  There must be some mistake, Lord, in this admonition from You.  And so my arguments and excuses go.

Following closely on the command to “rejoice always,” are others equally as hard for me to follow:  “Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.”  And then comes this concluding reason with which I can raise no argument:  “For this is the will of God concerning you.”  Then almost as brilliantly as the sunlight shattering the darkness at dawn or the landscape turning into dazzling aliveness after the dead of winter, an insight came to me as I read more carefully.  “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  It is the Lord’s indwelling within the life that makes the person rejoice.  He walks alongside me, dwells within me, fills me with the reason for rejoicing.  I don’t have to do the constant rejoicing on my own power!  It is He who lifts and upholds me.  “Do not quench the Spirit,” Paul writes (1 Thes. 5:19).  Further, he states, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The secret, I think, of rejoicing always is abiding always in Him and allowing the Spirit of God who lives within the believer lead us to rejoice.  “He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it,”  declares Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:24.

It is possible to rejoice even as one cries.  I have experienced this over and over in my life.  It is at times like these that we hold on to God’s faithfulness, not our own weaknesses and woes.  Considering how the Lord loves and provides for His children, how can we help but rejoice in every circumstance and look for the good even in what appear at first to be disappointments? 

Good and God’s undergirding reasons lie beneath every circumstance that besets us.  In this foreknowledge, we can, indeed, learn to rejoice always!  In retrospect, when we’ve been through a hardship, we can examine and see how God worked it all out for His glory.  But in anticipation of the good outcome—and with the sure knowledge that God is working things according to our good—we can rejoice.  The Psalmist had the right attitude as he penned 19:8:  “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”  And again from the Psalmist:  “This is the day which the Lord hath made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV).  I like the words of Vivian Green that go along with the idea of rejoicing always:  “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass.  It’s learning how to dance in the rain.”  -Ethelene Dyer Jones  03.16.2014.