“Your joy no man taketh from you.”~ Jn. 16:22
No one, says our Lord, can take our joy from us. True, but for all practical purposes I believe it can be voluntarily surrendered! At least, on more than one occasion, I’m ashamed to say, I have relinquished my treasured gift. This must deeply pain the heart of God who gave us this precious endowment.
How many of us have given to a loved one something we held dear unto ourselves, only later to see another in possession of it. How prone we are in letting others, even loved ones take our joy. They don’t want it; they just don’t want you to have it. You know, “Misery loves company.”
My dear departed friend, Dr. Tom Malone, was raised by his grandparents. He said he remembered when he was just a boy, his grandfather sitting by the radio listening to President Franklin Roosevelt. On one occasion, F.D.R. was saying he was going to take away all poverty. Dr. Malone said, the old man looked at him and said, “Why son, if he takes that away we won’t have nothing left.”
My friend, if we let this sad world take our joy from us, we’ll have nothing left!