Back in the 1880s, a group of men was looking for gold in the mountains of Montana. After weeks of hard work panning on an unnamed creek, one of them found an unusuallooking rock. Breaking it open, he couldn’t believe what he saw, a nugget of gold bigger than he had ever dreamed of finding.
Working quickly, the men soon discovered an abundance of gold. They were amazed at how fast they were pulling it out of the creek. With each new find, they hollered with joy and slapped each other on the back.
But as they sat around the campfire that night they realized that they needed to head into town to stock up on supplies before they could continue. As one might imagine,
before they left camp they
Th
agreed not to tell a soul about
Mi n sota
their good fortune.
While they were in town, no one breathed a word about it to anyone. But much to their dismay, as they prepared to ride back up into the mountains,
Displa d
they discovered a long
Networ
line of men waited at the edge
of town eager to follow them to their stake.
Yo r newsp ticipate in the Disp y Ad Net pr gram b un t se s in he Angry that one of the men had broken their pact, the leader asked the crowd, “OK, who squealed, who told you
that we found gold?” Themen
news ction of
2×2 & 2×4 in the crowd looked around
at each other for a moment, before one of them spoke up. “No one had to.” He said. “Your faces showed it. We could just tell.”
Imagine if that’s how people could see our faith living within us. What if the joy of our life with God was so
visible that everyone around
r
us could see it? I feel compelled
r
to ask this rhetorical x2
question because the truth is
rk
that we often don’t live lives of
ng
joy in spite of our faith.
Joy for Christians isn’t just simply the same as happiness.
I get happy when someone gives me a Snickers bar, or I beat a red light on the Central Entrance in Duluth, or the Gophers win (for once.) But that’s not real joy.
Joy comes to us like an unexpected stream of water in a parched desert. It is like the startling gift of sight that Jesus gave to a blind man. It comes upon us like the realization that Mary had when she suddenly knew that the child within her would change the world.
When we discover the joy of God, we can’t wait to share it with others. We fall in love with this new life that we have found. The joy that we feel is eternal. It is beyond anything that we will ever experience in this life.
And so we simply can’t
ds to run ONE TI keep it to ourselves. We can’t
help it. We want to live our lives as disciples of Jesus. We want our neighbors and our friends and even those who reject God to have this fellowship with us in Christ.
I have to confess that I have been reading the recent letters written to the editor of this paper with a growing sense of dismay. Week after week there are letters going back and forth arguing about the existence (or non-existence) of God. We can argue until we are hoarse about whether or
not there is a God, and we will accomplish nothing except to divide ourselves even further.
If we want to change the world through our faith, quoting Scripture to those who hold a contrary worldview is pointless. The world sees the joy of our faith through our actions, not through our words. The Bible is meant to be shared with others through our lives, and not by simply giving lip service to Scripture.
Perhaps those who believe that there is no creator will one day find God by experiencing our joy as we serve them. Showing our neighbors that we love them, regardless of their beliefs and traditions, is how we are called to live. All life is precious to God, including
the lives of those who walk
paths that are far different
E the we k begi from our own Joyful discipleship
in Jesus’ name sometimes means leaving behind what we are comfortable with so that others can experience the remarkable depth of God’s love as we have.
Live lives of joy, people!
Live lives of joy!
Each month a member of the
Cook County Ministerium
will offer Spiritual Reflections.
For June, our contributor is
Tom Murray of the Lutsen
Evangelical Lutheran Church.
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