Why doesn't matter - Who does.

On our family vacations to the beach while I was growing up, my parents always liked to stop at one particular Perkins restaurant for breakfast. It was a special treat for all of us, but more so for the lobby than for the food when it came to me. To a kid like me the lobby held a really neat device made solely for fun, nothing more. As I grew older I found that the toy was really a collector for a charity. I wanted to sit at the yellow funnel all day dropping all my parents coins into it and watching them spin until they hit the bottom and dropped out of sight. We would try spinning coins from both sides, determined to find out whose coin would make it first... Ultimately, every coin had the same destination.

Life happens. It plays out with an odd mixture of free will and determinism. It happens within boundaries. All of the events of the world, good, bad, indifferent end in the same manner. Like the coins on the funnel, they spin us around but ultimately end in the same narrow place. Life happens. It just does. Ultimately though, all events are spinning to the same narrow place. That narrow place is praise of God. We seek answers for why things happen, and I'm giving you the answer. The answer is for the praise of an almighty God who loves you but also loves himself. Oh and if you need more reason, go ahead and read the last few chapters of the book of Job.

I've lately been thinking a lot about I Thessalonians 5:16-18 which says: "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." There's a lot here... let's break it down and connect it back to our context. Joy is an amazing thing if you have it, but most people either don't have it now or quite possibly have never had it. Is that a stretch? I don't think it is. It is easy to be happy, but terribly difficult to be joyful. Being Joyful is something that is an expression both outward and inward of contentment, peace, happiness, etc. You cannot be joyful without the Spirit of Truth guiding you to contentment, peace, happiness, etc. Happiness is an outward expression of momentary positive emotional well being. It is entirely different from joy. In fact, Paul cautions the Galatians from seeking, as Peterson writes it in his paraphrase the message: "frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness" (Somewhere between Gal 5:21 and 5:23...) as they are evidence of a life not led by the SOT but by the flesh. Pray continually. Yikes. Good luck with that one if you are anyone other than Brother Lawrence... I guess where I've been spending the most time on this passage is in the next phrase... "give thanks in all circumstances". I think there is a reason that these three phrases are connected. Can you really be joyful if you aren't connected via prayer with God or can you be joyful if you are thankful for all circumstances? I am seeking to be thankful in all circumstances. All of them are a result of the grace of God in our lives. It is for His glory that we live and move and have our being. It doesn't matter what happens in our lives. It just doesn't. Give thanks in all circumstances for he has willed that you have the opportunity to experience joy and experience his blessings. All for Love. All for Love.

The coin is spinning again... circling as it drops down toward the basin at the bottom of the funnel. Life is spinning again... something has happened. It doesn't make sense. But as it spirals downward, we can see the destination in Christ's nail pierced hands. And that... that is what Joy is all about.

Surrender.