A joy thief is someone who is so consumed with selfishness and jealousy and anger over their own circumstances that they mourn rather than rejoice over the happy providences of God in others’ lives, even those whom they love and care for deeply. You see, a joy thief forgets who God is because they have spent too much time thinking about themselves instead of the Lord. The Shorter Westminster Catechism asks the question “What is God?” The answer it gives is this; “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice goodness and truth.” A joy thief is someone who has forgotten these things and needs to be reminded. I realized lately that I need to be reminded of these things again and need to take some time to dwell on who and what God is, and what that really means in my life, and how I need to ask for forgiveness and help to overcome these thoughts and feelings.
God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his Goodness. How easy it is to doubt God’s goodness in the midst of our pain. It is easy to wonder why God has not given me children when he calls them a blessing, it is hard to see why God in his goodness would withhold this good gift from me. I don’t have the answer to why, but I do have the answer to who God is, and he is infinitely good. Unchangeably good. Eternally good. He is good beyond my comprehension and my current circumstances. What I do know is that who I am has been shaped in ways beyond what I have fully realized through the last three and a half years, and I have been sanctified through these challenges, I have been blessed by things that would not have happened had I not experienced miscarriage and infertility. We would not have started fostering when we did, in fact, I never would have left my previous job, never would have found my current job that allows all the flexibility I need to be able to be a foster-parent, and never would have had the privilege to give 4 precious children a loving an godly home in their time of need, and provide their families with the peace of mind that they were loved and well cared for while they did what they needed to to bring them home. Our neighbors who heard me talking about our decision to pursue foster care and shared the same desire and calling as us may not have started their fostering journey at the same time either. When one of my best friends lost her child to miscarriage this past year, I was able to offer knowledge, love and support to her in a way that could only come from having experienced the same kind of loss. So not only has God been good to me through theses difficult circumstances, he has also been good to others through them, what a privilege to have had, and how incredible that he is able to redeem such sad and hard circumstances, results of the fall, and make them blessings for his people. God is good.
God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his wisdom. He knows all things fully from beginning to end, and in fact, has ordained all things from beginning to end. I struggle to organize my day wisely, meanwhile the Lord has perfectly and wisely ordained everything from beginning to end, and knows so much better than us what we need and when. He is so worthy of our complete trust and surrender to him.
God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his power. When I experience jealousy over a friend’s pregnancy and childbirth, I display an appalling lack of confidence in God’s power. To be jealous is to think that someone has received something instead of me, but God’s creative power is not so limited that he is only capable of creating a limited number of little souls each month. He in his aforementioned goodness, has given that person a child, and he in that same goodness and wisdom has not given one to me.
God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his Justice. He is not unfair to give one person a child and not another, for everything we have is a mercy from the lord and is undeserved. At the same time, God will one day make right all that has been ruined by the fall. That doesn’t mean that I will have children, it doesn’t mean that it will be made right in my earthly life, but we who trust in Christ will one day watch as Satan, sin, and death are defeated once and for all, and all things redeemed and and made new.
It is not wrong for us to mourn the brokenness of the world, of our bodies and the tragedy of death, we are right to grieve those things, but is is wrong and sinful for us to allow that righteous grief to become jealousy, bitterness or distrust of the Lord, and to keep us from celebrating with others when they receive happy providences from the Lord. It’s taken me a long time to get to this understanding, because jealousy is such an expected emotion when experiencing something like infertility. It’s a socially acceptable sin in many ways, but it is not acceptable to the Lord and it is not good for my own spiritual and emotional well-being. Which is why I’m grateful to be able to say that when I recently found out over the course of a couple of days that 3 of my friends are expecting, by the work of God in my heart, I was able to share in their joy and praise the Lord for the gift of these precious lives, and it was a feeling infinitely better than being a joy thief. I pray that the Lord will continue to remind us all of his infinite, unchangeable, and eternal wisdom, power, justice, and all of the rest of his wonderful being and make us content and give us joy and righteous grief in every circumstance, no matter how difficult our days may be.
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