A little girl had been to a revival and received the good news with great joy. She returned home laughing and singing. “Grandpa,” she cried, rushing into the room where the old man sat, “I have got religion! I have got religion!” He took her by the shoulders and sat her down hard on a chair. “You don’t know what religion is. People don’t shout and skip when they have religion. Now, sit still.”
The poor girl sat there a while, then crept away, all the joy and gladness gone from her little heart. She went and climbed on the lot fence, where she went each day to feed sugar to an old donkey. The old donkey put his head up, and as she stroked his face, she said pityingly: “Poor old donkey! Poor old donkey! You have got religion—I know you have; your face is long, just like grandpa’s."
Joy is everywhere we are.
Joy seems to be in short supply all around me. We have terror, worry, anxiety, bills, and a cadre of other things that make our faces long. On the other hand, Zephaniah chapter 3 reminds us that we can rejoice because: we have been forgiven by a God (The LORD has taken away the judgments against you…) who lives among us (The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more) and who will someday come to take us home (At that time I will bring you home).
As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a friend: “It’s a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians—and I am one of them.”
(Today In The Word, June, 1988, p. 18.)
Or, as Paul said, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice’ (Philippians 4:4).