A Good Thing to Remember

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

How do you go about rejoicing in the Lord? Why can you rejoice? What do you do that hampers your joy in God? Why do think Paul repeated himself, “again I will say, Rejoice”?

The following story was sent to me via e-mail:
A boy was sitting on a park bench with one hand resting on an open Bible. He was loudly exclaiming his praise to God. “Hallelujah! God is great!” he yelled without worrying whether anyone heard him or not. Along came a man who had recently completed studies at a local university. Feeling himself very enlightened in the ways of truth he asked the boy about the source of his joy.
“Hey,” asked the boy with a bright laugh, “Don't you have any idea what God is able to do? I just read that God opened up the waves of the Red Sea and led the whole nation of Israel right through the middle.” The enlightened man laughed lightly, sat down next to the boy and began to try to open his eyes to the “realities” of the miracles of the Bible.
“That can all be very easily explained. Modern scholarship has shown that the Red Sea in that area was only 10-inches deep at that time. It was no problem for the Israelites to wade across.”
The boy countered with, “Jesus rose from the dead.” The enlightened man responded with, “Jesus no more rose from the dead than the Israelites walked through the Red Sea. Common sense will tell you all that. If that book can prove they crossed on dry land I'll believe Jesus rose from the dead and eat my hat.”
The boy was stumped. His eyes wandered from the man back to the Bible laying open in his lap. The man, content that he had enlightened a poor, naive young person to the finer points of scientific insight, turned to go. Scarcely had he taken two steps when the boy began to rejoice and praise louder than before. The man turned to ask the reason for this resumed jubilation.
“Wow!" exclaimed the boy happily, “God is greater than I thought! Not only did He lead the whole nation of Israel through the Red Sea, He topped it off by drowning the whole Egyptian army in 10 inches of water.”
The man said, "Do you have any salt?"

Sometimes as life goes on and people try to bring us down we need to be reminded to rejoice in the Lord always. I’ve been told that when you become important to God you become important to Satan. Situations will arrive that will try to rob us of our joy. Paul has some advise for us in those situations. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice!”

With hope and joy,
Garrett