Philippians 4:4, Psalm 118:24

Josiah Parr

My Aunty Melina sadly passed away in the summer. At her funeral her children told us that daily she would ask them a question, "are you rejoicing this morning?" On the family fridge was a crumpled up sticky note that was left there as a reminder and that question has stuck to me.

Yesterday I asked Facebook if they were rejoicing. Many friends responded positively, one friend asked me, "about what?"

'Rejoice' means to feel or show great joy or delight.

This got me thinking "what do I have to rejoice about today?" Here goes:

I live in a country in which I can freely worship God.
I have an amazing wife and two beautiful children.
I have food and clothing.
I have a roof over my head.
I have a job that I love.
My football team won at the weekend
I got to share the gospel with two lads who had never heard about Jesus before.

Ok, so some of my rejoicing is more trivial than others, but I seriously have so much to rejoice over!

Philippians 4:4 says "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" and Psalm 118:24 tells us "This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."

Are you rejoicing always?

No! I am honestly not! I'm constantly finding reasons to grumble and complain and then explain it away as part of my culture. Well we are called to a higher culture - one that transcends our country of origin; we are called to the culture of heaven which continually finds a way to be filled with great delight and joy!

Last week my wife packed up a load of clothes that our eldest daughter had out grown. Two carrier bags full of clothes that she put by the door to give away. She contacted a friend of ours and let her know that she would give them to her when they next met. Later that week Vicki met with her friend and gave her the bags and what she told us next astounded me. Our friend has been on a bit of a faith adventure, as her husband has just begun a new job and they have three young kids. She had just cleared out the drawer of clothes that no longer fit her middle daughter and she knew that at that point she had exhausted all her avenues of hand me downs from family and simply presented her need to God.

Later that afternoon Vicki called her and told her that she had two bags of clothes. These clothes were specifically the size needed for their middle daughter. The blessing didn't stop there, later that week I was walking out of work and one of the ladies who works for the church handed me a bag and told me it was for Vicki - it was full of clothes for our youngest!

We had been blessed and been used to be a blessing.

I think my friend's question is fair enough, what do I have to rejoice over? I honestly think that if we are to rejoice in the way which God requires us to rejoice we will have to learn to see things as He sees them. I believe I could have completely missed out on seeing God's blessing if I hadn't learnt such a valuable lesson.

My Aunty Melina certainly taught me something of real value, which she had learnt by trial and error, but has produced in me a resolve to rejoice. Are you rejoicing today?