Rejoice in the Lord Always?

by Joel Miles

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. (Phil. 4:4)

Can we rejoice right now?

That is the question I keep asking myself. It is the question that my wife and I continue to ask one another. Like all of you, we have been thrust into a situation that is confusing, unnerving, and scary. And it will likely get worse. It is probable that many of us will lose our jobs, lose or exhaust our savings, experience depression because of the isolation, get sick with COVID-19, and some will even die. You may already be experiencing these things. We are all vulnerable and susceptible to the dramatic effects this virus is having on our society.

And there is no telling how long this is going to last. How long will we live with this social distance? How long will we spend almost all of our time in our houses, condos, or apartments? How long will we see each other almost exclusively through a computer screen -- or through the window of our apartment? How long will we ache and cry out to the Lord to protect our loved ones who are more susceptible to COVID-19’s horrifying effects? How long will working families or single parents be able to homeschool their children? How long can those who live alone be so isolated? How long can our medical workers continue to pour out their souls to help care for the rest of us? And how long can we endure any of these things with a good or godly attitude? 

I don’t know how long this will go. But I do believe that this time of loss, fear, and anxiety can drive us to the Lord. And in that we should rejoice. 

Before this global pandemic changed so much, many of us would have answered questions concerning “how long” by analyzing our own capacity to endure. Meaning, our answer was not concerning how long we would be forced to endure a difficult situation, but how long we believed we would be capable of enduring a situation. COVID-19 has changed that. We have been thrust into a situation where our capacity is no longer the deciding factor. Our answers to those questions listed above are almost entirely dependent on how long this new situation goes on. And as we have said already, not only do we not know how long this is going to last, the situation is also likely to get worse.

Can we rejoice in that?

It seems impossible. As my kids keep telling me, “I don’t want to do that!” I do not want to be in this situation. I don’t want to be stuck in this house for weeks or even months. I want life to be what it was. I want to wake up knowing what to do. I want to know what my day—what my week— will look like. I want to look to the future with the same confidence I once did. I want to be confident that my kids are going to get the education they should, that finances are secure, that vacations are set, that events are going to happen. I want to know that my parents are okay and not in danger if they simply go to the store. I want my wife to go to work without me having to fear that she is going to catch a virus and be among the younger people who are critically affected. I want to know that the congregation is healthy. I want to know how to help and care for people in the congregation when they feel alone and scared. And when I don’t have those things, I don’t feel like rejoicing. I feel like despairing.

But perhaps that is exactly why I should rejoice right now—because this situation is revealing to me my lack of dependence on God. Why do I not want those things to happen? Because in reality, when life is “normal,” I feel more secure. I find security through my life looking a certain way, rather than through God’s love and care for me. Don’t get me wrong; I know I need God. I need the gospel! I need Jesus. I need the power of the Holy Spirit within me. But this situation is revealing to me how often I think it is God plus innumerable other things that I need. Perhaps that is true for you as well.

In Philippians 4:12–13, Paul says,

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

It is obvious to me that I have not yet learned this secret. I have not yet learned deeply enough that through Jesus, I could face any situation and be fine—because of the gospel! Yet, it is because of this truth that I should rejoice right now.

There are two ways this could go for me. This situation could drive me to fear and despair—to frustration and anger—and away from the Lord, or I can let my fear and despair and anger and frustration -- drive me more and more to the Lord. I am certainly not going to stay the same. Therefore, I should rejoice because I believe that the Lord is offering me, and each one of us, an opportunity to know Him better. I am not saying that this is the reason for the coronavirus pandemic. I do not presume to know the intricacies of the will of our omniscient and loving God. I am simply saying that, right now, we have a great opportunity to truly learn what it means to not have our security and dependence rest in our situation or in our health, but in God’s care and provision for us. We have an opportunity to learn how to always rejoice in the Lord. That is not easy to hear and is even harder to do. But we have an opportunity to have our hope set more and more on Jesus. And that is better than not suffering. It is better to suffer and have our hope set on Jesus than to not suffer and set our hope on something else.

What I have said could be offensive to some, because my suffering does not even come close to comparing with yours. You are right. What I have been through—what I am going through—is not nearly as awful as what so many have to endure. But I seek to say this not as someone who is an authority on the experience of suffering, but as someone who has sought to grasp how suffering is used by God for our good and His glory. Paul came to see suffering and loss, not as a hindrance to his faith in God, but as something to embrace. He came to see suffering as something that should cause us to lament and mourn, but also something in which we should rejoice.

For as Paul says in Romans 5:3–5,

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Or, as he says in Philippians 3:8,

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

We have been thrust into this time of suffering and loss. It is hard and it is awful. It is something that should cause us to lament and cry out to the Lord. And yet, I would say that even now—perhaps especially now—we should rejoice. Let us rejoice in this difficulty, knowing that it can draw us to the Lord. It can lead us to fully place our hope in God. It can lead us to find our security not in the important yet fickle things we depend on, but in the sure foundation of the Lord. And that is better than anything else.

So let us rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

Joel Miles is an Associate Pastor of Holy Trinity Church, where he has served for 6 years. He lives on the West Side of Chicago with his wife, Anna, and four children.