How To Grow Farther With God

And so I watched him step out of what he had grown accustomed to and teach, with excitement, on a subject that challenges him even on his very best day…

Have you ever watched someone grow as they were growing? It may sound like a funny question, but it is not an impossible thing to see.

My husband has a habit of thinking out loud. As you can probably imagine, this has been both a blessing and a burden in our marriage. Recently, he was appointed as an advisor to a very important ministry on our military post.

Though it is exciting and new major responsibility, it is way out of his comfort zone and requires that he flex every ministry muscle that God has given him.

The fact that it is an all-women’s program aside, our president chose ‘Enjoy the Journey’ as the new theme for our upcoming year. While I was pumped up about developing programs to help teach Joy, at home, he was not-so-secretly revealing to me the challenge that this presented to him in his own personal walk with Christ.

Over the last five years, my husband has become an expert on grieving. After suffering a major loss in his life and needing to fulfill his God given call to ministry, he devoted much of his time to studying the subject in order to learn how to best witness out of the pain that remained in his life.

While we have discussed the importance of Joy many times and there is no debate on how essential it is to a Christian’s character, it is something that has been and still is hard for him to incorporate into his daily battle rhythm. While sorrow finds its place easily, choosing to enjoy his circumstances has been difficult for him.

Being known for my excitement and having unfairly boosted this man to another level of human because he is a preacher, I’ve often found myself insensitive towards this weakness.

I always thought that since he knows the Bible better than me, Joy couldn’t possibly elude him. Besides that, I began to take it personally that our new life together wasn’t blessing enough to remove this burden from constantly troubling him. I was wrong and he grew discouraged.

Once my husband found out that he was selected to facilitate our first summer workshop on Enjoying our Savior, we were both equally unsure of the outcome. Teaching Joy without passion is an insult to the One who created it and my husband is not okay with hurting Jesus.

Realizing the seriousness of his assignment, my husband prayed for his situation and decided to commit to studying true biblical Joy like he had never done before. Every few days he would share with me some of his new discoveries and it amazed me to watch as his eyes opened to developing a new perspective in life.

When he came home and told me that just as the Lord had helped him learn how to minister out of his grief, that He was now learning how to support others through Joy, my heart smiled beyond measure.

God’s way is not always our way; His timing is perfect. God knew exactly what my husband needed to learn exactly the moment he needed to learn it.

Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord. ~ Psalm 21:14

This article is part of Jenny's ongoing contribution to LIFTUPYOURDAY.COM