"Rejoice and leap for joy"
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) Throughout Scripture, we hear this invitation from our Lord, to be joyful, or to rejoice. The word “joy” appears about 60 times in the New Testament and the word “rejoice”, 43 times. It’s clear that the Lord wants us to be a joy filled people. As I pray about this I reflect on how often I forget to live into this invitation. Being a full-time missionary in Haiti I often allow the difficulties of living in a developing county to rob me of my joy. Things like not having water for 3 weeks, lack of electricity, the poor education system and lack of quality medical care ( #American problems) or the stress that comes from living in a trilingual community with people of all ages and at different stages in life, keep me from rejoicing as the Lord commands me to do. The Lord invites us to rejoice but He does not promise that everything is going to be happy-go-lucky all the time. Christ rejoice...