when God speaks

I haven't posted in a while....no excuses....so I'm moving on. :)

So the other day Blake and I were driving back to San Antonio and of course I was bored and needed something to fill my time. So what did I do? I started out asking Blake questions! :) At first it was things like what's your favorite color? favorite song? favorite movie? All things that I knew after almost 6 years of dating. Then I started to ask deeper more meaningful questions like what's your testimony? how is God a part of your life? Things that I knew, but always love to hear again.

Finally I got into questions that I didn't already know the answer to. One question and response that has stuck in my head over the last few weeks since the conversation was.....have you ever heard or experienced God talking to you? Not necessarily audible, but an obvious time where for a moment God opens our human eyes more than what is normal and reveals something about Him to us. Blake being the intelligent person that he is of course gave me an answer that I would have never expected or thought of.

He told me about a book by C.S. Lewis (I think probably Surprised by Joy) in which he talked about the difference between joy and happiness. He said that joy is in those moments when God allows our human eyes to see beyond what we usually can see or understand into the heavenly realm. For a moment we understand God a little more and cannot explain or sometimes even completely understand what we've seen, but we are forever changed. It is these moments when we experience joy. Lewis explains that there is a difference between joy and happiness. While happiness is based on our human emotions and our human existence, joy is based on our relationship with our God and his great love and mercy.

It makes me think of all times that I've heard that following Christ is not always easy and is not always full of happiness. By the grace of God I have lived a blessed life. I could never imagine how those Christians in the world that have hard lives because of their faith could go on. But what I've come to realize is that though their lives are not filled with happiness.....their lives ARE filled with joy. Something so much better that goes beyond our physical life and touches the eternal.

So today open your eyes, prepare your hearts and experience joy. I guess that's why that favorite Christmas song proclaims Christ's birth as our "Joy to the World".