Just One Word: 2013-2014 By Cortney Donelson

Source: Unknown

Nehemiah 8:10

“This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Joy - It was my word for 2013. I faithfully embedded the word in my heart, laid it as a foundation for my decisions, and kept my focus on the power it provides. After 12 months, I can honestly say I have a new respect for joy.

I have discovered quite a bit about this three-letter word. In June, I wrote that joy is a choice. I was halfway to fully understanding my word of the year. During the past six months, I have learned so much more about joy…

Joy is not simply an emotion. Rather, joy is more like an experience, a condition of our souls. We do not feel joy, but instead are filled with it. Joy is more than a fleeting sentiment. That would be a simplification to the point of gross misinterpretation. Joy is the radical realization that God is here.  It brings us a new perspective – one based on a death on a cross. Joy is a way of life. If we want to have any hope of finding and being filled with this joy, we must choose the battle it justly deserves. 

John Piper[1] has written in his book “When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy,” We can draw no deadlines for God. He hastens or He delays as he sees fit. And his timing is all-loving toward his children. On that we might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. I don't mean that we make peace with darkness. We fight for joy. But we fight as those who are saved by grace and held by Christ. We say... that our night will soon - in God's good timing - turn to day.

Joy is not the absence of sadness or grief. It does not eliminate darkness. Joy is the condition created in our hearts when we finally realize that all our hope, peace, and eternity are secure in God’s grace and promises through Christ in spite of that darkness. Our circumstances, no matter how difficult, cannot steal this joy. Instead, our joy-battles give us the ability to be patient through the darkness – to be victorious over those circumstances, despite what we are feeling on the inside.

I battled for joy this past year. Despite difficulties, judgments, sorrow, and even some regret, I was filled with joy. How? I sat with the knowledge that Jesus was crushing all my difficulties under His feet, and in doing so, gifted those victories to me too. My joy is found in knowing Christ on an intimate level. I fought for the conviction that my peace and hope are found in the assurance that this broken world is not the home where my soul belongs, and my joy-well can spring up and out no matter what is happening in this world.

As I learned and wrote last year, peace and joy are intimately intertwined. The same applies for joy and my word for 2014. When I shared my new word with my husband, he cringed. During my year of joy, I traveled to Haiti and finished a very personal book draft and sent it off to an editor. He wonders what this word will lead to! It is not a word one should take lightly. That's okay; I don't intend to...

(Insert drum roll)

My 2014 word is courage!

Without joy, courage falters. How can we be bold and uncover the strength it takes to be courageous in our faith – in our lives – if we are not filled with the joy of knowing Christ and understanding what that relationship offers us? Without joy-inspired courage, there would be fewer long-term missionaries seeking out the lost and teaching them about Jesus in unsafe areas of the world. Without courage, divine purposes that go against the grain of our society’s standards would be left unfilled out of fear of rejection or even persecution. And without courage, that neighbor across the street who has abandoned all things church may go on living apart from the One who saves. 

Nehemiah 8:10 says, “This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”  This day – today – is holy to God. No matter what today brings, He asks us to fear not. He commands us to grieve not. He wants us to find and fill with the joy we have in Him and use it to bolster our courage for Him.

In 2014, I will strive to see my choices through the lens named courage.  I will seek out God’s will and stay the course, even if that path runs counter-intuitive to the expectations of this world. As the song, “Believer,” by Audio Adrenaline goes:

I want to live this life unsafe, unsure, but not afraid

What I want is to give all I got somehow

Giving up letting go of control right now

In fact, every word of the song expresses how I expect to live out my year of courage. Check it out at http://www.klove.com/music/artists/audio-adrenaline/songs/believer-lyrics.aspx.

My message as the year 2013 ends and the calendar flips to 2014 is that joy is not simply a feeling, and it’s much more than a choice. It is a battle within ourselves to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us - one worth fighting until the very end and one that will produce in us the courage required to face any difficulty and any adventure that lay ahead. 

What is your word for the new year? Some ideas from our household include relentless, surrender, grace, and kindness. I would love it if you left your one word in a comment below. Perhaps it will inspire others in 2014.

Joshua 1:9

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Prayer – Oh God, how I have found joy in You! How blessed I am to be able to experience life with this perspective. My prayers go out to those who do not know You and therefore find little joy in this world – those who allow their situations to dictate their hope. You are bigger than our circumstances and our mistakes. For that, I am so grateful. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

[1] John Piper is a Calvinistic Baptist Christian preacher and author who served as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota for 33 years

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