The boat image makes concrete what most sermons on joy leave abstract.
One thing this brings up: on the days when the storm is heavy enough that even the lighthouse feels distant, what helps is having a record of specific things He did before. Not the general feeling of faith. The specific: the thing that happened on that Tuesday in March, the provision that came through on that particular day, the prayer answered so precisely it couldn't have been coincidence.
"He promised us himself" is only as livable as the evidence you have that He has been present. The record is how you locate the lighthouse when the fog is thickest.
Thank you for these hope filled and Christ centered words, I needed them today… “Jesus, the Light of the world, is the beam that cuts through every night of the soul and points us home… that beam of light cutting through the darkness doesn’t make the rocks any less sharp or the water any less cold… It simply refuses to let you believe the lie that the storm is all there is… Every harsh wave, every bitter season, every grief that wears your name will one day find its end in him.” Lord fill me with a supernatural joy as I look to the lighthouse of Christ in the midst of the storm and cling to the hope found in the truth his light reveals: that the storm is not all there is, or the end of the story.
Happiness is difficult to find when alone and ill. But joy isnt...God's presence can't be purchased, streamed, or delivered to my doorstep. Thank you for your encouragement. Difficult to find at church.
It makes me think of a very old (and I am dating myself here🤣) country song. “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden”.
Yes, Jesus is the answer, but we don’t always get the answers in this lifetime.
I also think that Christianity gets loads of false advertising. Lol
The crowd that say “If there’s a God, then why do bad things happen to good people” were casualties of that advertisement.
God’s goodness and mercy follows us, but it doesn’t come dressed in the perks that we think it should. I can’t recall a verse from Scripture that says we should be happy. I do remember joy.
In South Africa joy for children of God looks different. It takes keeping an eye on the political arena to know what’s up for THIS side of glory. It takes looking with intention at the One who holds my future and that means my Eternal Home!
Whooohooooo!
And hope. Yes that! We have hope IN Christ.
No one is coming to save us.
But Jesus already saved us for a brilliant future away from here.
Thank you for encouraging the younger generation to walk in and through the tension. Once they actually cross over, see themselves grow in courage, and then their faith, seeing them strengthened and fortified is the greatest joy and excitement. Thank you for the work you do.
Aaron, thank you! Your boat analogy is both beautiful and profound. Perhaps with one more layer then you realized. When Jesus came to the disciples walking on the water in the storm, everyone thinks of Peter who stepped out of the boat. Rightly so... But there's a lesson to be seen in the disciples who stayed in the boat. I've always wondered at this—why the others didn't join Peter with haste? While the boat felt 'familiar' and seemed to be the smart choice at face value... It was actually the most dangerous place at that very moment. True Safety (capital S) was standing out IN the storm. Calm and steady—with an outstretched hand and a warm invitation. 🙂❤️
Thank you for such a topic that spoke directly to my mind and heart and spirit. I am sad. I cry so easily like I have tears that just have to be released. I don’t have a reason for all my tears.
This piece you wrote helped. I related to your words with each sentence and I am grateful for you. Jesus knew I needed to read this. He is like that. He always answers. Bless our Jesus.
I'd implore you to give this message to those who have been most harmed by the church and the outer world: the disabled and the mentally ill. The church has left us behind. It has discarded us like old newspaper. Thank goodness for us that our feelings mean nothing to our salvation because that is by grace through faith in Christ. We may feel sadness, hurt, and pain every day until we leave this world; we may never feel a moment of happiness and yet our joy will vibe waiting for us in the next world.
I just challenged my friend with the thought that fullness of joy is possible now. I don't think I've experienced it. Maybe recognizing that scripture brings fullness and completeness of joy forth as an idea is the first step to recognizing the experience. But it's in scripture, so it must be possible. Thanks for the illustration and explanation to help that become possible.
The boat and lighthouse distinction is exactly right, and it opens a question we think about often: if joy is a lighthouse, what keeps you oriented toward it when the storm makes it hard to see? One thing we've found is that the record matters, not the record of moods, but the record of when the lighthouse was undeniably real: the date God came through, the encouragement that held you through a dark chapter, the promise that proved true. When the storm is loudest, the problem is often not a failure of faith but a failure of infrastructure: the joy that sustained you last year is still real, but we lose access to it because we never wrote it down. That point about homesickness, that it only exists because home is real, may be the most honest framing of Christian sadness there is.
You are sad, you have no joy, because you are merely following Jesus. You are not communing with Him in Theosis. Theosis is a state of communion with God where there is distinction of persons but interpenetration and sharing of being. I share His life and He shares mine. I am in Him and He is in me. I live in Him as a fish lives in water and water lives in the fish. Theosis is a state of being, a state of existence, where I have everything I want and need because I have Him and He has me. In Theosis, I am who I really am. I am who I am.
Brother, I hear you, I appreciate your comments on some of my other works, and I actually love the language of Theosis. The Eastern tradition has given the church a beautiful picture of union with Christ that we Western Protestants sometimes miss in our transactional categories. “I in Him and He in me” is deeply biblical.
But here’s where I’d gently push back a bit: Jesus himself was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He wept over Jerusalem. He sweat blood in Gethsemane. He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross.
And yet, Jesus was and is in perfect communion with the Father. Perfect Theosis, if we’re using that language.
The union was never broken, even when the sorrow was crushing.
So I don’t think sadness means we’re doing communion wrong. I think sadness is often the sign that we’re awake to how broken the world is, how far we are from the restoration that’s coming, and how much we long for the home we haven’t reached yet.
Paul himself says we groan inwardly while we wait for the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23). That groaning happens in union with Christ, not outside of it.
I’m genuinely glad you’ve experienced the kind of communion with God that sustains you. That’s a gift. And I see how you try to teach it to others. Thank you for that.
But I also want to make space for the saints who are walking faithfully with Jesus and still carrying real sorrow, real grief, real ache. They’re not doing it wrong. They’re just living honestly in a world that’s not home yet.
There is a distinction between the sadness, the sorrow, I feel for my sinfulness and the sinfulness of the world and the sadness, the sorrow, I feel because the sea of my life is no longer calm and peaceful. The sorrow that Jesus felt was for the fallen world, even on the cross, He did not feel sorry for Himself. I have great sorrow and sadness for my sins and the sinfulness of the world. Theosis does not come unless I severely repents for the evil I have committed, weeping tears and beating my chest in sorrow. It seems to me that the sadness you are talking about in this writing is the sorrow that come from the storms, the difficulties in my life, not sorrow for my sin. I’m not in Theosis all the time but when I am the difficulties of my life don’t bother me. I’m grateful for them. I’m almost 77 years old and my body is breaking down from old age and I’m grateful for it. The saints of old endured the torture of crucifixion, being eaten by lions, burned alive, because they were in Theosis and were grateful for it.
You know, my wife and I actually have this running joke whenever we’re going through something hard. We’ll lament about it for a bit, but then we’ll stop and say, “Well, at least we’re not being fed to the lions! At least we’re not being hunted down by the Roman Empire.” You’re absolutely right that the early saints endured unimaginable suffering with gratitude because of their union with Christ. Comparatively, we have it pretty good.
And I’m with you on the importance of sorrow for sin. That kind of sorrow is absolutely central to the Christian life. The broken and contrite heart that God doesn’t despise. The repentance that leads to life. I teach this regularly in my School of Discipleship: suffering isn’t something to be avoided at all costs. The reality of the Christian life, the reality of human existence itself, is suffering. It’s inescapable. But suffering is meant to be a doorway to becoming more like Christ and experiencing intimacy with Him. We see this pattern all through Scripture. Trials produce perseverance, character, hope (Romans 5). We rejoice in our sufferings because we know what they’re producing in us (2 Corinthians 12).
So I hear what you’re saying, and I think we’re on the same page about a lot of this.
Where I’d gently add a layer is this: I don’t think the sadness I’m describing in the piece is self-pity or sorrow for the sake of sorrow. My hope in writing and sharing from my own struggles is to point others to Christ and to show people how Christ has met me in the middle of suffering and difficulty. The lighthouse metaphor is about that very thing: Christ as the fixed point when everything else is chaos.
I’d also point out that Scripture gives us permission to be genuinely sad about our circumstances, even as we’re walking faithfully with God. Paul talks about being sorrowful yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10). He describes his deep anguish over Israel (Romans 9:2). Jesus himself was deeply troubled in Gethsemane, to the point of sweating blood. David’s Psalms are full of lament, honest cries about how hard things are, even as he anchors himself in God’s faithfulness.
My core point is this: joy and sadness aren’t enemies. They can coexist. One can experience the temporary loss of happiness because of life circumstances but still carry joy. Because of Christ in me, because I look to Christ as my hope and my anchor in the storm, the lighthouse in the storm, even in moments of sadness, I can have deep joy.
That’s what I’m trying to give people permission to experience. Not endless navel-gazing or complaint, but honest acknowledgment that following Jesus doesn’t erase the hard things. It gives us Someone to cling to in the middle of them.
Does that make sense? I think we’re probably closer than it might seem at first glance.
We are not that far apart. The distinction is in having Someone to cling to in troubled times and having Someone Who lives in us in trouble times, Someone we live in in troubled times. The distinction is having Jesus as a guiding light outside us and having Jesus inside us as a Light that removes the darkness from us. If we have the light of Christ inside us, no matter how dark it is outside, the darkness cannot enter into us.
That's a good word. For me the distinction is not either or but both and. Christ is both within me and he is the hope that I look outwardly to. He is the lighthouse on the hill as well as the light within my heart and soul and mind. :)
Thank you for the iron sharpening iron George. Appreciate your perspectives and dialogue here.
You know… lot of people when they read something from me that they disagree with or don't entirely like, just unsubscribe. I appreciate that you didn't do that. Thank you for sticking around to talk through it. 😊
The boat image makes concrete what most sermons on joy leave abstract.
One thing this brings up: on the days when the storm is heavy enough that even the lighthouse feels distant, what helps is having a record of specific things He did before. Not the general feeling of faith. The specific: the thing that happened on that Tuesday in March, the provision that came through on that particular day, the prayer answered so precisely it couldn't have been coincidence.
"He promised us himself" is only as livable as the evidence you have that He has been present. The record is how you locate the lighthouse when the fog is thickest.
Thank you for these hope filled and Christ centered words, I needed them today… “Jesus, the Light of the world, is the beam that cuts through every night of the soul and points us home… that beam of light cutting through the darkness doesn’t make the rocks any less sharp or the water any less cold… It simply refuses to let you believe the lie that the storm is all there is… Every harsh wave, every bitter season, every grief that wears your name will one day find its end in him.” Lord fill me with a supernatural joy as I look to the lighthouse of Christ in the midst of the storm and cling to the hope found in the truth his light reveals: that the storm is not all there is, or the end of the story.
Happiness is difficult to find when alone and ill. But joy isnt...God's presence can't be purchased, streamed, or delivered to my doorstep. Thank you for your encouragement. Difficult to find at church.
This, my friend, is dynamite!
It makes me think of a very old (and I am dating myself here🤣) country song. “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden”.
Yes, Jesus is the answer, but we don’t always get the answers in this lifetime.
I also think that Christianity gets loads of false advertising. Lol
The crowd that say “If there’s a God, then why do bad things happen to good people” were casualties of that advertisement.
God’s goodness and mercy follows us, but it doesn’t come dressed in the perks that we think it should. I can’t recall a verse from Scripture that says we should be happy. I do remember joy.
In South Africa joy for children of God looks different. It takes keeping an eye on the political arena to know what’s up for THIS side of glory. It takes looking with intention at the One who holds my future and that means my Eternal Home!
Whooohooooo!
And hope. Yes that! We have hope IN Christ.
No one is coming to save us.
But Jesus already saved us for a brilliant future away from here.
Thank you for encouraging the younger generation to walk in and through the tension. Once they actually cross over, see themselves grow in courage, and then their faith, seeing them strengthened and fortified is the greatest joy and excitement. Thank you for the work you do.
Aaron, thank you! Your boat analogy is both beautiful and profound. Perhaps with one more layer then you realized. When Jesus came to the disciples walking on the water in the storm, everyone thinks of Peter who stepped out of the boat. Rightly so... But there's a lesson to be seen in the disciples who stayed in the boat. I've always wondered at this—why the others didn't join Peter with haste? While the boat felt 'familiar' and seemed to be the smart choice at face value... It was actually the most dangerous place at that very moment. True Safety (capital S) was standing out IN the storm. Calm and steady—with an outstretched hand and a warm invitation. 🙂❤️
Happiness floats, joy stands.
Thank you for such a topic that spoke directly to my mind and heart and spirit. I am sad. I cry so easily like I have tears that just have to be released. I don’t have a reason for all my tears.
This piece you wrote helped. I related to your words with each sentence and I am grateful for you. Jesus knew I needed to read this. He is like that. He always answers. Bless our Jesus.
I'd implore you to give this message to those who have been most harmed by the church and the outer world: the disabled and the mentally ill. The church has left us behind. It has discarded us like old newspaper. Thank goodness for us that our feelings mean nothing to our salvation because that is by grace through faith in Christ. We may feel sadness, hurt, and pain every day until we leave this world; we may never feel a moment of happiness and yet our joy will vibe waiting for us in the next world.
Perhaps your pain will turn to joy in the blink of an eye.
Upward Look 💪💯
Yes. We are being shaped for eternal life, not catered to in this life. Sometimes suffering is mercy from God.
I just challenged my friend with the thought that fullness of joy is possible now. I don't think I've experienced it. Maybe recognizing that scripture brings fullness and completeness of joy forth as an idea is the first step to recognizing the experience. But it's in scripture, so it must be possible. Thanks for the illustration and explanation to help that become possible.
The boat and lighthouse distinction is exactly right, and it opens a question we think about often: if joy is a lighthouse, what keeps you oriented toward it when the storm makes it hard to see? One thing we've found is that the record matters, not the record of moods, but the record of when the lighthouse was undeniably real: the date God came through, the encouragement that held you through a dark chapter, the promise that proved true. When the storm is loudest, the problem is often not a failure of faith but a failure of infrastructure: the joy that sustained you last year is still real, but we lose access to it because we never wrote it down. That point about homesickness, that it only exists because home is real, may be the most honest framing of Christian sadness there is.
You are sad, you have no joy, because you are merely following Jesus. You are not communing with Him in Theosis. Theosis is a state of communion with God where there is distinction of persons but interpenetration and sharing of being. I share His life and He shares mine. I am in Him and He is in me. I live in Him as a fish lives in water and water lives in the fish. Theosis is a state of being, a state of existence, where I have everything I want and need because I have Him and He has me. In Theosis, I am who I really am. I am who I am.
Brother, I hear you, I appreciate your comments on some of my other works, and I actually love the language of Theosis. The Eastern tradition has given the church a beautiful picture of union with Christ that we Western Protestants sometimes miss in our transactional categories. “I in Him and He in me” is deeply biblical.
But here’s where I’d gently push back a bit: Jesus himself was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He wept over Jerusalem. He sweat blood in Gethsemane. He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross.
And yet, Jesus was and is in perfect communion with the Father. Perfect Theosis, if we’re using that language.
The union was never broken, even when the sorrow was crushing.
So I don’t think sadness means we’re doing communion wrong. I think sadness is often the sign that we’re awake to how broken the world is, how far we are from the restoration that’s coming, and how much we long for the home we haven’t reached yet.
Paul himself says we groan inwardly while we wait for the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23). That groaning happens in union with Christ, not outside of it.
I’m genuinely glad you’ve experienced the kind of communion with God that sustains you. That’s a gift. And I see how you try to teach it to others. Thank you for that.
But I also want to make space for the saints who are walking faithfully with Jesus and still carrying real sorrow, real grief, real ache. They’re not doing it wrong. They’re just living honestly in a world that’s not home yet.
Grace and peace to you, brother.
There is a distinction between the sadness, the sorrow, I feel for my sinfulness and the sinfulness of the world and the sadness, the sorrow, I feel because the sea of my life is no longer calm and peaceful. The sorrow that Jesus felt was for the fallen world, even on the cross, He did not feel sorry for Himself. I have great sorrow and sadness for my sins and the sinfulness of the world. Theosis does not come unless I severely repents for the evil I have committed, weeping tears and beating my chest in sorrow. It seems to me that the sadness you are talking about in this writing is the sorrow that come from the storms, the difficulties in my life, not sorrow for my sin. I’m not in Theosis all the time but when I am the difficulties of my life don’t bother me. I’m grateful for them. I’m almost 77 years old and my body is breaking down from old age and I’m grateful for it. The saints of old endured the torture of crucifixion, being eaten by lions, burned alive, because they were in Theosis and were grateful for it.
You know, my wife and I actually have this running joke whenever we’re going through something hard. We’ll lament about it for a bit, but then we’ll stop and say, “Well, at least we’re not being fed to the lions! At least we’re not being hunted down by the Roman Empire.” You’re absolutely right that the early saints endured unimaginable suffering with gratitude because of their union with Christ. Comparatively, we have it pretty good.
And I’m with you on the importance of sorrow for sin. That kind of sorrow is absolutely central to the Christian life. The broken and contrite heart that God doesn’t despise. The repentance that leads to life. I teach this regularly in my School of Discipleship: suffering isn’t something to be avoided at all costs. The reality of the Christian life, the reality of human existence itself, is suffering. It’s inescapable. But suffering is meant to be a doorway to becoming more like Christ and experiencing intimacy with Him. We see this pattern all through Scripture. Trials produce perseverance, character, hope (Romans 5). We rejoice in our sufferings because we know what they’re producing in us (2 Corinthians 12).
So I hear what you’re saying, and I think we’re on the same page about a lot of this.
Where I’d gently add a layer is this: I don’t think the sadness I’m describing in the piece is self-pity or sorrow for the sake of sorrow. My hope in writing and sharing from my own struggles is to point others to Christ and to show people how Christ has met me in the middle of suffering and difficulty. The lighthouse metaphor is about that very thing: Christ as the fixed point when everything else is chaos.
I’d also point out that Scripture gives us permission to be genuinely sad about our circumstances, even as we’re walking faithfully with God. Paul talks about being sorrowful yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10). He describes his deep anguish over Israel (Romans 9:2). Jesus himself was deeply troubled in Gethsemane, to the point of sweating blood. David’s Psalms are full of lament, honest cries about how hard things are, even as he anchors himself in God’s faithfulness.
My core point is this: joy and sadness aren’t enemies. They can coexist. One can experience the temporary loss of happiness because of life circumstances but still carry joy. Because of Christ in me, because I look to Christ as my hope and my anchor in the storm, the lighthouse in the storm, even in moments of sadness, I can have deep joy.
That’s what I’m trying to give people permission to experience. Not endless navel-gazing or complaint, but honest acknowledgment that following Jesus doesn’t erase the hard things. It gives us Someone to cling to in the middle of them.
Does that make sense? I think we’re probably closer than it might seem at first glance.
Grace and peace, brother.
Aaron
We are not that far apart. The distinction is in having Someone to cling to in troubled times and having Someone Who lives in us in trouble times, Someone we live in in troubled times. The distinction is having Jesus as a guiding light outside us and having Jesus inside us as a Light that removes the darkness from us. If we have the light of Christ inside us, no matter how dark it is outside, the darkness cannot enter into us.
That's a good word. For me the distinction is not either or but both and. Christ is both within me and he is the hope that I look outwardly to. He is the lighthouse on the hill as well as the light within my heart and soul and mind. :)
Thank you for the iron sharpening iron George. Appreciate your perspectives and dialogue here.
You know… lot of people when they read something from me that they disagree with or don't entirely like, just unsubscribe. I appreciate that you didn't do that. Thank you for sticking around to talk through it. 😊
I’m grateful to be able to dialogue with you. You can’t do that on Facebook!!!
Here is a song lyric I wrote: HAVE YOU EVER WEPT FOR THE WORLD?
BY
George W. Engelhard
C 2012
Intro
Has your heart ever ached beyond your control?
The way that Christ’s ached in Gethsemane?
Have you ever sorrowed deep in the depths of your soul?
The way that Christ sorrowed on Calvary
Have you ever wept for the world?
The way He wept over Jerusalem
The way He wept at Laz’rus tomb
Have you ever wept for the world?
Verse
Have you ever wept for the hungry, the oppressed?
The homeless, the imprisoned, the ill, the obsessed
For losers, fugitives, gangsters, transgressors
For victims and sufferers, the innocent bystanders
Have you ever wept for the world?
Verse
For those who are lost without faith, hope, and love
Without prudence and temperance and fear from above
Without knowledge and strength and the wisdom of God
Without blessing, and mercy, and the graces of God
Have you ever wept for the world?
Verse
Those who worship the world instead of the Lord
Who will do anything not to be bored?
Caught up in the hustle and bustle of life
The daily grind and the daily strife
Have you ever wept for the world?
Verse
The haters, the barraters, the obnoxious and loud
The angry, the jealous, the lustful, the proud
Those who sin with elation in thought, word, and deed
Living for power, pleasure, and greed
Have you ever wept for the world?
Bridge
A wayward world in need of the Way
A dying world in need of His Life
A world living a lie in need of the Truth
A darkened world in need of the Light
A world in need of Jesus Christ
Have you ever wept for the world?
Tag
You and I are part of this fallen world, too
So weep for me and I’ll weep for you
Let us all weep for the world
Have you ever prayed for the world?
Lord, have mercy, Lord have mercy!
Who are you addressing George?
Anyone who needs to hear this.