Joy

Phil. 4:1 - "My Dear brothers and sisters, stay true to the Lord. I love you and long to see you, dear friends, for you are my joy and crown I receive for my work."

This past Sunday we visited the church we attended when we lived in California and we got to reconnect with old friends and we heard a wonderful challenge from Pastor Mark. They have been going through the book of Philippians and focusing on joy and how to experience joy in your life as a Christian. The main point of the sermon was stated like this: The quality of our relationships determines the quantity of our joy. How true that is. Pastor Mark asked two questions as he ended his sermon. The first was, "Who is your Paul?" which means, who is it that is mentoring you, challenging you, and causing you to grow as a Christian. The second was, "Who is your Timothy?" which means, who is the person you are mentoring, challenging, and causing to grow in Christ. I immediately thought of those who I have had the privilege to work with over the past few years and how my relationships with them have brought me so much joy. :) I also immediately thought of a godly man who has meant so much to me in my relationship with Christ and my journey of growth with God and others. He is pictured above. His name is Pastor Claude Short. He was my pastor from the time I was about 11 to age 18 and his influence cemented many truths about Christ, the church, and following God. We were able to eat dinner with Pastor Claude and his wife and daughter last Saturday. Eating with them was such a joyful thing for all. Not only was it joyful to him to see people he has loved and mentored following Christ, but it was a joy for me to see him still following and loving God after all these years. Pastor Claude was the one who baptized me when I was 14 and I was able to not only tell Silas about that, but show him the pool where I was baptized. We took the picture above last weekend. It is such a perfect example of joy. I am standing with my mentor and pastor by the pool I was baptized in. I am standing there with my son who I am discipling and training to follow God. And I also have Silas holding little Dave. Little Dave is a knitted doll I received from a eleven year old girl in KY as we were getting ready to leave. She said she made it as a thank you for all Jen and I had done for her and her family.

The quality of our relationships determines the quantity of our joy. Let me challenge you as I did in the last entry... Invest in people. Love people genuinely. Be willing to take the time to not just be their friend but speak truth boldly and disciple them. Find someone who you trust and let them speak into you. Then make sure you find someone and speak into them. When you do this, you will experience the joy Christ has desired for you to have.