This is the view of my sky this morning. Now, at first glance, it may not look very beautiful, and clearly my camera does not quite capture the beauty of things, but my sky is beautiful this morning.
See, it rained most of the day yesterday, so the sunshine today is very welcoming! Normally at 6:30 in the morning, I am still seeing the inside of my eyelids, yet this morning, I awoke at 5:00. I forgot how beautiful these mornings were!
For me, there is something about being up at the crack up dawn that is so peaceful and relaxing. I truly don't do it that often, simply because I like my sleep, but when I do, it makes a difference in my entire day.
I was looking in scripture and drinking my coffee, while listening to the birds sing a morning melody, when I thought about Nehemiah 8:10 "...the joy of the Lord is my strength." Now, if you read Sunday's post, then you know that I really desire to have my joy back. I used to think this was an exuberant, jubilant kind of joy, yet something told me it wasn't, because we would be expected to be fake and counterfeit since this is not a joy we can produce all the time.
I looked this scripture up and found the Hebrew words:
Joy- theios means godlike, divine, godhead
Strength- mauz or mauwz (maw-ooz) means a fortified place, defense, force, fort, rock.
Wow! That would mean that joy in this context is not necessarily a feeling as we tend to think, but rather a state of being. Using those definitions, the verse would read like this:
The godhead of the self-existent (or eternal) Lord is my fortified place and rock!
Whew! That takes a lot of pressure off to perform and manifest a feeling of joy which I do NOT manufacture well on my own!
It is the firm planting of our beliefs and faith in God that keeps us going, keeps us strong, and keeps us camped in the fort of the One who is eternal.
So, again, as I look at the picture of my sky this morning, I am reminded that even when I see the storm clouds roll in or see residue from yesterday's storm, I don't have to be in despair. The sun still shines because of where my heart is planted! I can find peace, hope, and comfort in the defense of my Lord...
...and so can you!!!
With Love, Heaven
4 comments:
What a "feel good" post.
I love looking at the sky too. You did a good job capturing it with your camera. It's hard to do that. I've tried.
I was explaining the diffence between happiness and joy to Adam yesterday. I will show him your post.
neat post. I tried to take pictures of the sky one day with my phone, they turned out ok. The coulds looked like a big angel in the sky it was pretty cool. too bad I don't know how to transfer pics from my phone to the computer! lol.
Your camera does take good pictures, doesn't it! I love to analyze words too and see where the meaning really is. Thanks for this!
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