ON LIVING DEFIANT JOY

Enough. Enough reminds me of my long-ago blinding flash of the obvious re the 23rd Psalm's 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.' My flash: I shall not want because I have enough, I shall always have enough...the Lord is my shepherd.'  

Since I had that BFO, I have lived there to the best of my ability. The hardest lesson to live is the "chaos and suffering" required to live there. "Necessary suffering" is not a catchphrase, it is a spiritual fact. Of God. For our benefit. 

As Brian McLaren has written, We have to prepare ourselves to live good lives of defiant joy even in the midst of chaos and suffering. 

Defiant joy. Well, now. There's a whole new perspective aborning. 

But it's not really...it is the perspective we glimpsed years ago that we walk...crawl, skip, totter, cartwheel...each day. We recall our "enough" BFO; then our Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies bringing the divine insight: THOU prepares the place. Prepares the place for me. 

There's our assurance, our insurance, our pearl beyond price: Our enemies have been defanged and are now being used by God to raise our faith deeper.

We needed only to change our reasoning mind...from fearful to grateful. Ah, and there is defiant joy leading the way! Thou prepares the place and the pace...we follow, loving and laughing...with defiant joy. 

And we were afraid spiritual growth would be boring...that old age would be the rocking chair's got me...that which we had not before heard of, defiant joy, would be so defiantly joyful!

God is so good to us.

Thank you.