Joy in discomfort

Philippians 2:11-18a

Just to let you know: I am officially fed-up with adjusting the driver’s seat on my new (second-hand) car. Yesterday, after weeks of careful tweaking and experimentation, I happened to compare my ideal settings with the position of the non-adjustable passenger seat ... they were identical. It was a sad moment. And this doesn’t bring me terribly smoothly to the subject of joy. Or perhaps it does.

Fact is we all want some form of joy that will endure. But we often look for joy in the wrong places. We learned last week that Paul derived joy from the fact that he was changing the shape of eternity through a successful gospel partnership with the Philippians. Partnerships created for the purposes of building the Kingdom of God can become a reliable source of enduring joy. Yet how often do we turn to gospel partnerships as a source of joy? How important are they to us?

Let me tell you about something that is important to me: comfort. I don’t do suffering. The less pain, hardship, chaos, or untidiness there is in my life the better. My friends may even be stunned to hear that I HATE bad smells. Surprising? Given my constitution, maybe it is. But seriously, if there are bad smells in heaven, I don’t want to go. Bad smells came after Adam sinned (in my opinion).

But here’s the thing – life is not comfortable. And if I want an easy life, then I will be a rotten Christian and a stranger to joy. Did not Jesus order me to pick up my cross every day? And did not Paul experience joy though in prison for the sake of the gospel? Roman prisons were not designed for comfort. They probably didn’t smell too good either. That prison was Paul’s cross. Yet Paul did not report on his comfort in verses 12-18a (chapter 1). Instead, he reported on the progress of the gospel and delighted in the fact that the gospel was advancing through his suffering rather than in spite of it.

There were soldiers in Caesar’s palace guard that could only be reached through Paul’s imprisonment. I wonder who God wants to reach through your suffering or tough circumstances? How could you respond to your circumstances in a way that will point people to Jesus? When we look for joy in easy circumstances, our gladness shares will soon start devaluing. But when we focus on how God can use our tough circumstances to propel the gospel, we will find true gladness.

Cheers for now - Ian