I will say it Again: Rejoice

We brought in the New Year shooting fireworks in the bush. The boys shooting fireworks were joyful and had no care or worry they could blow us or themselves up. A 16 shot firework fell over and starting shooting bombs at the car and all of us, the boys scattered and dad reacted quickly and kicked it back up right. Fireworks and Shipes usually mean a lot of excitement. But I digress.

In today's blog, I want to share an honest moment with my friends and family. While I was preparing for the VBS I struggled with the theme of JOY. How do you explain to children the joy of Christmas and explain something I was not feeling myself. My family realized this Joy I was working hard to teach the children of Mosojane was not showing up "down in my heart". Hunter repeatedly sung this song to me all month to make a point he was not seeing any Joy in me. At this point Joy has not been my choice for over a month. I was having a hard time finding out why and trying to find out what was happening in my life to make this choice difficult. To put it mildly, I was struggling.

Could it have been something in my past I had never dealt with? I was blaming crazy combi drivers in Botswana, people not understanding my questions. I wondered if we were accomplishing what God had planned for us. I blamed people breaking in lines everywhere, people running stop signs in front of me. I struggled with explaining to children God's love when they have never been told they were loved by their own family. My final frustration came in having to find another house after only 4 months of living here. I've had a number of things going through my mind and I was not willing to share it with anyone, thinking I could get it together - I am a man, we fix and control things, right? Lack of sleep and loosing my patience over too small of stuff was the fruit of my struggle and thinking I could do this alone didn't help. I was working harder and harder to seek God's guidance only to realize how I am really telling Him how frustrated things are for me. Finally, Last night I had to break down and tell Tonya how I felt and was at the end of my rope wrangling with why I cannot find joy. I hurts not to be able to put your finger on why you are frustrated.

Then God provided me the very verse I was sharing with the children in Mosojane at church this morning. Phillipians 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice." We saw a video of Francis Chan talking about Joy. This pastor always gets to root of our problems in the simplest ways. He used the illustration of a bag of Cheetos stating it had 0 Grams of trans fat. Turn the bag around and read the fine print, it has trans fat, just less than a gram. God provided an amazing reminder for me today. Like the Cheetos bag, I have been trying to tell the world I am a Christian - with this label on front of the package. Truth is lately, I have not been letting God be God in my life. I have been hanging on to everything as if I have control and thinking I was suppose to be some agent of God with power in these matters around me. He is the One and only One in control. I am suppose to be joyful that He is in control with my life and everything around me. How I act in my circumstances is to reveal why I am different than the world. I am different because a God in heaven loved me so much to send His Son to die for my sins so I can let Him be Lord of my life. If I have truly given Him my life, then I have to let Him have it. My circumstances in life are for His glory. How I respond reveals Jesus to others. If little children do not know love, then the least I can do is show it to them and let my children see that is real. I had no problem showing the little children love but my joy was gone at home. Verse 5, "Let your gentleness be evident to all". I was living a lie; not being real to everyone and everything around me - including those in my own home. The love of Jesus Christ is so important to share with the world around us. Reading on in Phillipians, we are not to be anxious about anything. I was doing exactly the opposite, I was anxious about everything. It kept me from the peace of God that transcends all understanding, thus my mind and heart were not guarded in Jesus Christ but my problems were all I could see. The truth is they are God's issues I was thinking about. Because I was wrong in my thinking, it robbed me, my family and those around me of JOY. Today, I choose joy and put away self-centeredness and being counterproductive in my thoughts. Today, I was able to rejoice in the Lord and I can say it again, REJOICE. He is in charge and I always should rejoice in the path that got me here and the path that is leading me forward, no matter what gets in the way. Today, I have peace that should have been there all along. Lesson learned - Let God be God and be joyful. How do I feel, happy from Joy. Thank you for letting me share a valuable lesson learned. I pray that might help some of you choose joy everyday.

Please continue to pray for me and my family as we serve the Children of Botswana.

Scott Shipes