Week 03 · Gladness that survives a hard month

Joy That Doesn't Depend

Read together: Philippians 4:4-13

Also read: Nehemiah 8:10 · Habakkuk 3:17-19

Joy is not the same as a good week. Paul wrote this from prison. A marriage can be glad in a season that is not going well.

The heart of it

Rejoice in the Lord always is not advice to pretend. Paul immediately gives the mechanics: be anxious for nothing, bring everything to God with thanksgiving, and the peace of God will guard your heart. Joy has an object — in the Lord — and a practice — prayer with thanks.

Then he tells us what to fill our minds with: whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report. What a couple rehearses out loud is what they come to believe about each other. A home where the running commentary is complaint will slowly lose its joy no matter how many good things happen in it.

Finally he says contentment is learned. Not felt, not inherited — learned, in both abundance and need. If you are waiting for the season to change before you can be glad together, you will be waiting a long time.

What to notice

The command is repeated, which means joy is not automatic even for Paul.
Thanksgiving is part of the mechanism, not decoration on the end of the prayer.
Peace guards the heart like a soldier at a gate; it keeps things out.
I can do all things through Christ sits in a paragraph about being hungry and poor, not about winning.

Talk together

1What is the running commentary in our house — grateful, or grinding? Be honest.
2What are you anxious about that you have not actually prayed about?
3Name three specific things about your spouse you are thankful for, out loud, right now.
4What have we been telling ourselves has to change before we can be happy?
5What is one thing that reliably brings joy into this house that we have stopped doing?

Your own journal

Answer these on your own during the week. They are yours; you are never required to read them out loud.

1. Where has complaining become my normal way of talking about my life?

2. What am I carrying that I keep worrying instead of praying?

3. Write out ten thanksgivings, five of them about your spouse.

4. What have I made a condition for my own contentment?

5. Ask God for gladness this week and write what you expect Him to do with it.

This week's challenge

Each night this week, before sleep, say one thing out loud you were thankful for that day. No commentary, no complaints attached.

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

Philippians 4:6

Pray together

Bring your real anxieties to God by name and thank Him out loud for three things before you finish.

Next week: Peace in the House