Joy Comes in the Morning

A short episode to encourage you: joy truly does come in the morning. And even though that sometimes feels impossible in the darkness or in the wilderness, the seeds of future joy are being planted. Why? Because Jesus is always at work. He is moving in ways we cannot see. He can handle our grief and our depression and our questions. And He delights in filling us with His joy, love, hope, and peace. 

I pray this episode encourages you - we can trust the Lord when He says that joy comes in the morning. It is truth we can cling to when the darkness crowds in. And it is something we can thank Him for and worship Him for as we journey through discipleship with the Lord. 

Also, if you wanna rock out, here is the (very random) playlist I mentioned in the episode: 

Joy Comes in the Morning Playlist

Scriptures Referenced:

• Psalm 30
• Isaiah 61:1-3
• Hebrews 12
• Philippians 4
• Matthew 5
• John 15:9-10
• Job 25:6

You can find me on Instagram / Threads

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey everyone, welcome to a brand new episode of Honey from the Rock. I am laughing because I just tried to record an intro and I tried to sing, which is not good when I don't have the black lung, but it was atrocious, and so I deleted that because nobody needs to hear it. Um this will be a short episode. Well shorter, you know, because I I don't know how long I can talk without hacking up my lungs. But I wanted to show up today because I I have um I have a scripture I want to read and talk about a little bit. But also I just today has been one of those days where I have really felt in a very deep, like not um crazy, euphoric, I can't control myself, pointer sisters, I'm so excited kind of way. But um in a just really cool, I think, holy spiritual way, just the joy of the Lord. And part of that came from um just reading my Bible plan that I'm doing with my mom and my friend Gina. Um oddly enough, it's gonna sound weird. We're going through the book of Jonah right now, which, you know, doesn't really sound like a book where you would walk away from and be like, you know, I just really feel like reading this. I am filled with the joy of the Lord. But there's so much to learn from Jonah. And also, I love this plan that we're doing in U version because it not only has verses from Jonah as we read through it, but also pulls in different scriptures. And one of the scriptures I had with today, because it was talking about the Lord's redemption and his loving kindness and his forgiveness and his mercy, and um how he delights to redeem us and deliver us, and he loves it when we come to him. And so they pulled Psalm 30, which has some verses in it that talk about joy. And also recently, I have been obsessed with the song Joy by Ray. If you have not heard it, I have actually put together a playlist in Apple Music called Joy Comes in the Morning. And it's just a bunch of songs that I am listening to that are really uplifting me in the Lord. Um, really just getting me kind of hyped up and and again, like I said, not like pointer sisters, because right now, again, that would not be good for the lungs. But um, I don't know, just really sensing, you know, after a really, really, really difficult year that I've talked about quite a bit, um, not only for me, but for my family, um, the Lord is is pulling us out of the grave, right? Kind of pulling us out of the darkness of the belly of the whale almost, and bringing us up into the light, like pulling us up out of the dark, and oh my gosh, which also makes me think of another song, which is coming out of the dark by Gloria Estefan. I'm not gonna sing it, but it's fine. It just word association song association in my mind today, friends. But I I have a sense of anticipation for this season. Um, I don't know how long it'll last. I don't know what the Lord's gonna do. But it's just like, you know, the the loss of my dad and my sisters will always be with me and my family. We can't, we will never we can't escape it and we will never forget them. However, um we also have the opportunity to step into something new and a new chapter, and that is very hopeful to me, you know, and it feels like such kindness from the Lord after going through some really devastating and hard things. And so I just wanted to pop on and I wanted to share. Like, man, I'm just I after having having many dark moments in this past year where I mean, I'm I was literally crying out to the Lord, how long, oh Lord? Like, where have you gone? Um asking him, you know, to to help me sense his presence and and to comfort me and my family and wrestling with things and all sorts of stuff. Uh, to be at this place, sitting in this chair today and just having this overwhelming in the best way joy that is being stirred up in my soul is such a gift. And I will share the Apple Music playlist in the show notes. Um, but if you get the chance to listen to the song Joy by Ray, I would really encourage you to. I love it, it's so good. Um, but like I said on that playlist, there's a whole bunch of other songs on there as well. And also, I was listening to the podcast and I was, you know, just I don't know. I felt like I kind of wanted a little refresh. I know 31 episodes in, it's like, oh, I need a refresh. So I changed the intro and outro music. It's literally the same at the beginning and the end, but it just felt a little bit peppier, you know, not quite so uh I liked the other one, but it just didn't feel I don't know. I just wanted to change. So I told you today's episode was going to be super random. But what I want to read is I want to read this psalm, and it is Psalm 30, and the title of it in the NASB is Thanksgiving for Deliverance from Death. And it's a psalm that David wrote that has this mixture of both Thanksgiving and also remembering what he's come out of, remembering what the Lord's pulled him out of. And so I'm gonna read the whole thing, it's short. But as I read it, my prayer is that it would minister to each of us, that the Lord never changes, and in his goodness and in his mercy, and in his love, and in his justice, and in his um faithfulness, and just and the the totality of who he is, his holiness that we cannot fully comprehend here on earth, that he holds us in every season. And that I know that there are some of those seasons that are just knock down, drag out, difficult, and and sometimes just make you want to throw in the towel of just like, Lord, I just I get why David was yelling, where are you? And I get why Job was like, I feel like a worm. And and I'm so thankful for those things in scripture that give us the uh give us language that we can use to the Lord and and not put a facade or a veneer on what we're walking through, but we can go to the Lord in in our frustration and our sorrow and our anger and our grief and our hurt, all of it. But what I love is that scripture doesn't just give us that, it also gives us language of praise and joy and hope and love and thanksgiving and gratitude that we can offer back up to the Lord as an offering. And so I don't know where you are at today, but I pray as I read this psalm, wherever you find yourself in life, that you would also find yourself in this psalm, that you would remember what the Lord has done for you. And if you are still down in the darkness and in the belly of the whale, in the depths of grief, in in the hardness of life, that you would still see the Lord's goodness to you. If you are walking in difficulty where, you know, like all of us do, you've screwed up and you know the Lord's dealing with you, that in this psalm you would hear his grace and his mercy and his goodness in correction and also his delight in in restoration. And if you're moving into a season of joy, if you're moving into a season of um where where some of the burdens are lifting and you're seeing a little bit more freedom in areas where you never thought you would be free. Or I mean, for me, how I would describe it is it just starts to feel like the veil starts to lift from your eyes a little bit, that you would be encouraged in the Lord. So Psalm 30 says, I will extol you, O Lord, for you have lifted me up and have not let my enemies rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol, you have kept me alive that I would not go down into the pit. Sing praise to the Lord, you his godly ones, and give thanks for his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment, his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning. Now as for me I said in my prosperity, I will never be moved. O Lord, by your favor you have made my mountain to stand strong. You hid your face and I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I called, and to the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it declare your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me, O Lord, be my helper. You have turned for me my morning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may sing praise to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever. I love that psalm. Um I just I love the juxtaposition. I love that David remembers the difficulty, that he remembers times when the Lord when he knew the Lord's displeasure. I knew there were times in like when he is talking about, Lord, what what does it profit if I go down to the pit? Like what does it what what will my death at this point profit? Or to say, you know, Lord, I was I was in a difficult place, but you didn't let my enemies rejoice over me. You've healed me, you've brought my soul up from Sheol. You've not me let, you've not let me go all the way down into the pit. And I, you know, we quote it a lot for his anger is but for a moment, his favor is for a life lifetime in the second part of that verse. Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning. We we quote that quite a bit, but I think these verses take on different contexts and textures and depth when we walk through really desolate, difficult, painful times with the Lord. Because we start to realize, and maybe, I mean, I say we, I pray, I pray all of us realize it, but I will I will say for me, where in my despair, my soul's bent was to sometimes give in to the feeling and give in to the temptation, like the Lord's forgotten you. You've you've done what he's called you to do, and now you just get to live out the rest of your life, and here it is, la la la, you know, or to just feel like you know, I've known moments when the Lord has been displeased with me. I've felt the sharpness of his conviction, I've known his anger, and and also have fallen into the temptation of the devil to believe that that's now only always going to be the Lord's disposition towards me. But it's not. It's not. Though the Lord disciplines us, you know, and it's, you know, again, the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12 tells us it's not, discipline's not fun. And yet, if we will let it, it it will bring forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness within us. We will have peace between us and the Lord restored, and we will come to know him in a deeper, in a deeper way. We will know his love in a deeper way. And we start to understand that joy is not a human emotion, but it is a fruit of the spirit. It, you know, we've we've tried to hijack joy and make it happiness. And and we can't, we can't do it. You know, I mean, again, if you read the Beatitudes, you know, that word in the Greek for blessed means happy. Happy is one of its meanings. And then you look at the list of the things that Jesus says, and it's like, happy is the person who knows all of these, like is is poor in spirit, who mourns, um, who has a pure heart, who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, is persecuted for the sake of Jesus. What? And yet, it as we know in the Christian walk, this kingdom that the Lord has called us to be a part of is an upside down kingdom. And so, yes, we can we can be happy, quote unquote, when we're mourning. We can be happy, quote unquote, right? When we're poor in spirit, because we know eventually in those things, maybe not right away, and maybe, maybe not always completely right away visible to us, but that the Lord is working and that he is with us, and we can know his comfort, and we can know his good pleasure, we can know his love, um, we can know his leading and discern his voice and experience that deeper union that he wants us to have with him in joy, you know, in the joy of the Lord. And that's not I what I love so much is that the word joy, like joy isn't something that comes from a refusal to come into the reality of your circumstances. I know I've said it a couple of times, but Paul wrote the book of Philippians from prison. He writes about joy a ton in that book. He talks about rejoicing in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. You know, I just like he was able to write about all of these things. Uh, whatever is pure, whatever is beautiful, um, whatever is lovely, you know, thing on these things. You know, I just, and he wrote it from prison. And Paul wasn't denying the difficulty of his circumstance. But he had learned, the Lord had taught him how to be content in all things, and he knew that contentment in whatever the Lord was doing in his life, whatever cost he had to pay for the preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, that it was worth it, that he is worth it, and also that in that contentment, there is there is such joy. There is such joy. And it is it is a deep-rooted joy. It's it and again, it's it's a fruit that only the spirit can bring to full effect in in our life. And I just again, I love the perspective of David here. Like you, you, Lord, have turned my morning into dancing. You loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. You are the one who has been my helper. You've been gracious to me. And Lord, that you do these things. It is my soul's pleasure to sing praise to you and not be silent and to give thanks to the Lord forever. And so, friends, I just I want to encourage you today. I want to encourage me today that wherever you are with the Lord, and again, it's it's not looking for something that just makes us giddy with excitement, but that in the midst of those difficult circumstances, or in the midst of walking through hardship, or coming out of it and starting to look back and see your journey into the difficulty and into the wilderness with the Lord, where it is a wrestle and it is difficult and it can be desolate sometimes to be able to look back and actually start to see so many ways that Jesus showed up, that he ministered, that he poured himself in when we were completely unaware that um that he is he is at work and we can we can have a true holy spiritual joy. And that the Lord delights to cultivate that joy in us. He wants He wants to see us come to a place and ultimately, eternally, when we die and we go to be with Him, where there's no more tears in our eyes, right? There's no more mourning, there's no more sadness. But I I firmly believe that the Lord also wants to give us glimpses of that here in this life, to give us looks at what's what is coming for us, what what true joy can look like within him. And so I don't know. I just I pray that encourages you today, that you will take some time, and I'm gonna take some time to go back to Psalm 30, to meditate on it, to read it, and to ask the Holy Spirit to stick these glorious truths into our spirit, you know, to cling to the hand and uh of Jesus and and to hold on so tightly to him as he walks us through this life and to know there will be valleys, there will be walks in the wilderness, journeys in the wilderness that are difficult, but those times don't last for forever, and and the Lord will bring forth the oil of joy for mourning, as he says in Isaiah 61, that we can come out of those seasons with a deeper and more beautiful union with Jesus, and uh that we can uh believe him when he says that he wants his joy to be in us and and for our joy to be full, that we can walk in his love and his mercy. And so, friends, I like I said, it's gonna be a short episode today, but I know a lot of listeners are dealing with a lot of different things in life, and so I pray, I pray that the Lord would give you comfort, I pray that he would reveal himself to you, that he would give you a glimpse of his heart for you, and that he would start to show you in the soil of your heart where the tender roots of joy are are deepening and being cultivated. And soon, friends, we will start to see the fruit of joy coming in the morning. Amen.