Rejoice

I looked 'rejoice' up in the dictionary and it means "to feel or show great joy or delight." In "Counterfeit Gods," Tim Keller gives this definition: "to rejoice is to treasure a thing, to assess its value to you, to reflect on its beauty and importance until your heart rests in it and tastes the sweetness of it. It's a way of praising God until the heart is sweetened and rested, and until it relaxes its grip on anything else it thinks that it needs."

(Doesn't he just say things so much better?)

I've never been a good rejoicer.

I think it comes with grappling with self-centeredness.

I let things affect me more than they probably should and I'm not a big picture kind of person. I feel things and I don't stop feeling them until I've thought them over. That can take a while. So rejoicing hardly comes as my first response. It's hardly even my second. It's after I've thought through everything and come to some conclusion that I think it's time to rejoice.

But I've felt some freedom in knowing that rejoicing doesn't mean being happy all the time. It's so much more than an emotion.

I just finished "Counterfeit Gods" (I think TK should just sponsor this blog) and like always, he blows me away. He writes about counterfeit gods and idols and reminds readers that they're almost always good things: what a great word that idols can sneak up on you. His answer for dealing with them is to replace them with the Gospel and here's how he says to do that: "Setting the mind and heart on things above.. means appreciating, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you."

APPRECIATE. REJOICE. REST.

My sister is currently living in Africa for her second straight year. She's living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is the poorest country in the world. She teaches students at the local university and knows Swahili fluently. It really is just as awesome as it sounds.

She knows what rejoicing is. She's seen it firsthand.

Here's my favorite African story. When my parents went over there with a team to visit my sister and her team, they bought a motorcycle for a man at the university. A motorcycle was his only way of transportation (besides a long trek on foot). His motorcycle had been broken for a while and it was affecting how he got around and, in turn, was affecting how he lived his life. So the team bought him a new one. And my mom tells it that as soon as he saw the motorcycle, his gift, immediately after he saw it, he collapsed to the ground in worship. Head on the ground, weeping, praying, REJOICING. And my mom nails it when she said that he didn't go to the motorcycle first, ride it around, and thank God when he went to bed that night.

He rejoiced. Right away. He rejoiced despite his circumstances.

His first response was praise. He "treasured, assessed its value to him, reflected on its beauty and importance until his heart rested in it and tasted the sweetness of it." And I think the sweetest part of the story is that he treasured and reflected and his heart rested in God.. and not his gift. Not the motorcycle.

Because he rejoiced, because he knew to rejoice, he can loosen his grip on anything else he may think he needs. Like that motorcycle.

TK writes this: "It is when we rejoice over Jesus' sacrificial love for us most fully that we are most truly convicted of our sin."

Did you get that?

It is when we REJOICE over Jesus' sacrificial love for us most fully that we are most truly convicted of our sin.

It's when we stop thinking about ourselves. Stop thinking about what we've done or will do to make up for our sins or to prove our worth. It's when we fix our eyes on Jesus, on His cross, and think about what He's done. What He continues to do.

It's when we stop focusing on the motorcycle and start focusing on Who gave it to us.