God MAKE Me to Hear

Rejoice! It's Sunday and we are absolutely free from any condemnation and shame. None of our sins can steal our joy and peace.

This week I came across this one verse in the well loved Psalm 51, "Make me to hear joy and gladness."

King David wrote this after he became convicted of the sin against God in his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.



Adultery always gets complicated with lies and cover-up manipulations. King David did horrible things in trying to preserve himself from shame, or harm.



From his true repentant heart, he cries out to God in this Psalm. Never before had I read these verbs so clearly in this song. He cries out to God to not only to forgive him, but he begs God to MAKE him to be able to hear the Lord's joy and Heaven's gladness. Oh, yes read this over slowly and wonder at the greatness of Jesus Christ on the cross for you and me.

"Make me to hear joy and gladness."

Psalm 51:8

Satan loves for us to remember our sins and heap on shame for anything real or imagined. I see too many Christians living with condemnation and shame. Either Jesus Christ paid it all or He didn't. I believe the Bible...I am the redeemed of the Lord. He paid it all and I will thrive; not because I'm great. No, I will thrive because I have died to self and I live in Christ.



Rejoice and celebrate this wonderful Sabbath in Christ. If you can't, call out to God like King David and ask God to MAKE you hear the sounds of Heaven here on earth: joy and gladness.

Is Joy A Choice?

Yesterday was a bummer. Someone made an error that costs me time, money and stretched my patience. When I encountered them and saw how devastated they were over their error, my heart melted. Mercy came over me . What could have been an awful moment became a powerful love thing. God is amazing how He shows up to turn things around.

Thriving in my circumstances is a stretch when so many surprises pop up....negative surprises. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'm reading a book by Tim Hansel, The Hidden Adventure. He lives in constant pain after an accident.

"Every single day since my accident, I am forced to consider how I might choose joy as a daily attitude. It's a constant choice. Some days the pain is so overwhelming that joyous is not what I want to be. Sometimes it's a demonic battle for me to choose joy for the next minute, much less the next day. And as I've said, choosing joy doesn't alleviate the pain, the ambiguity and the doubt. it just gives a way to live with it."

"I have lived with this truth for decades: Joy is a choice. I don't have to wrestle with physical pain often, but other pains and disappointments knock on my door often."

Hansel recalls a conversation with Dr. James Dobson,

"Tim, why, after all this, why do you choose joy?"

"Because I have to," answered Tim, "Sometimes I think I'd literally go to pieces if I didn't. I know that if didn't choose joy my life would atrophy. The confidence that God is in control keeps me choosing it."

I agree with Tim. Knowing that God is with us and in control of all, we can choose joy. This week I've misplaced some important papers and several things are not going "my way." I am deciding to choose joy. I encourage you to choose joy...no matter what. If God does this for Tim, He'll do it for us.

"The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).