by Margaret Radisich Sleasman

Created on: November 10, 2009   Last Updated: November 14, 2009

Nehemiah 8:10 says "The Joy of the Lord is your strength," and I love that verse, but I am going to steer away from that and go to Psalm 30:5, which says, "For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." You see you cannot have Christian joy if you are rolling around in sin. David is describing how the Lord brought him up out of his sin at the dedication of David's house. He is in such a state of joy and thanksgiving that he can hardly contain himself.

Our problem is that when we sin, we put it out of our minds and ignore it for awhile, fully intending to confess it, but not right at that moment. As we go on, the unconfessed sin is still there stealing our joy, and we may have added a couple more sins to the list, burying the first. By the time we realize we are miserable and no longer joyous we cannot remember the sin that caused the problem; we spend the next few weeks trying to remember how we got where we are and beg the Lord to forgive us of whatever it was that we did way back when. We are so busy feeling guilty that we cannot hear the Lord's gentle nudging bringing that sin into remembrance.

Remember back when David sent Bathsheba's husband out to war and he was killed. David really did not see himself as a murderer or even an adulterer. He loved Bathsheba and was blinded by that love, the old adage "we are in love so it must be of God" is what blinds us. During this time he lost his joy and did not know what happened until the prophet told him the "bad guy" story and then told David that the bad guy was him. Once David realized that he had sinned, he repented and saw his sin for what it was - a terrible offence to God. That one sin cost him much anguish during his life and even though he was a man after God's own heart his sin still had grave consequences.

We as Christians know that we are miserable when we have unconfessed sin in our hearts and we know we lose our joy, but sometimes we still neglect immediate repentance. We continue to dig a deeper hole until we find that we have hit the bottom. It is amazing that we neglect such a gift, that we neglect to stay close under the Lord's wing; we should know better, but we stray like the lost lambs and often get caught in the thicket and are eaten by wolves. In the verse, David was describing God's anger at sin and his repentance, and that the joy comes back after repentance. In order to keep our joy, we must repent and confess immediately so there is no separation between us and God, not even for a moment.

The Lord chastises us when we sin in order to draw us back to him. We are not very smart because when this happens we wonder why we are having problems and seldom see that it is because of our sin; we roll around in the pig pen feeling sorry for ourselves because of some sort of bad luck and look for someone to blame for our woes. I know this to be true because I have spent much time in the pig-pen and much time wondering where my joy went.

There is no such thing as big sins, little sins, almost sins, or sins of omission. Sin, no matter how we classify it is an offence to the one that created us and the joy of the Lord cannot reside in the same heart where sin dwells. I am thinking of getting myself one of those wood Christmas plaques that just says JOY and keeping it up all year long. Being a very dumb sheep, I wonder if it will remind me of my sin and the joy I have lost or if I will avoid looking at it when I have sinned.

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