Isaiah 12
Joyful Experience (vv. 1-3)
- Celebrate the Lord for His Forgiveness.
- Celebrate the Lord for His Salvation
Joyful Expression (vv. 4-6)
- Praise the Lord
- Declare His deeds
- Remember to exalt His Name
- Sing to the Lord
More to Consider
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. C.S. Lewis.
Author Leo Buscaglia tells this story about his mother and their "misery dinner." It was the night after his father came home and said it looked as if he would have to go into bankruptcy because his partner had absconded with their firm's funds. His mother went out and sold some jewelry to buy food for a sumptuous feast. Other members of the family scolded her for it. But she told them that "the time for joy is now, when we need it most, not next week." Her courageous act rallied the family. Christopher News Notes, August, 1993.
Happiness is an emotion, and joy is an attitude. Emotions come and go, but attitudes come and grow. Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 496.
The king of a particular country traveled often, but one day a man living near the place remarked to a friend, “Well, it looks like the king is home tonight.”
“How do you know?” asked the other. The man pointed up toward the royal house. “Because when the king is home,” he said, “the castle is all lit up.”
Ibid.
