Part of my job involves seasonal duties managing a drive-through Christmas light display. We setup and maintain hundreds of displays. After dark, I often walk through the course, ladder in hand, checking for burned out lights. Once in a while, I find myself climbing up in a display, changing lights, and wondering what in the world the display represents. I am too close to it, and cannot see the big picture. 

You see, often we cannot the big picture of our lives; we cannot see our course as God sees it. All we see are a few bright spots, a few dark spots, a little color, or – sometimes – a big mess. 

God, however, sees our entire lives. He knows our beginning and our end, our faults and our weaknesses, and He loves us as dearly as any father has ever loved a child. 

We must only have faith that He is providing for us, caring for us, and protecting us, because He loves us and wants only the best for us… Even when we cannot see things from His perspective. 

We Trust you God, even when we cannot see…

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. 1 Peter 1:8

Recently, my wife and I drove through the Boston Mountains, a beautiful part of the Ozarks Plateau. We ate lunch at a cafe built atop mount Judea, overlooking the Buffalo National River Valley, where I took the photo above. It struck us as we drove that some of the roads we traveled have seen little improvement in the last hundred years or so. 

Sure, the roads have been maintained, but they have not been improved. They follow the same paths that they did when they were first laid down. They run along the ridges, twisting and turning with the mountain, hugging precariously to peaks, and slaloming into mountain valleys. 

To be honest, these unapproved roads are part of the appeal of the Ozarks. They lend the area a certain rustic charm. Many find comfort knowing that there are parts of the country that still look and feel much like they did fifty or a hundred years ago. 

That got me thinking, though. Christians are to be quite the opposite of these old highways. As we travel life’s path, God asks us to change. We should not stay the same course that we did when Christ first saved us. If we allow Him, He will straighten our paths, strengthen our resolve, fill us with His power and love, and develop in us the self-discipline necessary to mature and help others. 

Do you want to be like Jesus? God promises in 2 Timothy 1:7 to give us the power to truly be Christ-like. 

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7 NIV

Many Christians spend a great deal of time saddened. Some have good reason to be sad, but others seem to choose to live a sorrowful life. I was once one of those. 

True joy comes only to Christians who fully surrender to Christ. Joy comes to those who realize that they are not a being who has a soul, but rather a soul who has a body. Joy comes only to those who learn to accept their human condition, come what may, because they are in God’s hands. 

Paul wrote from prison, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11b – 13). 

Many in America’s post-Christian society teach that joy is a decision. Few, though, can simply choose to be joyful without deeply burying their pain. Paul did not offer platitudes or write a self-help book. He didn’t preach positive thinking. The key to true joy is in the last half of verse 13: “Christ who strengthens me.”

David (Psalm 30:5) could be sure that joy comes in the morning because he had submerged himself in the mercy of God. He could be sure that God’s wrath lasted but a while because he had learned that, when he sinned, to repent and seek forgiveness. He had, indeed, surrendered to God. 

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

“I can find true joy through Christ who strengthens me.”