A lady in our church was recently baptized. She doesn’t speak the local language, so one of our church members was translating her answers to the pastor’s questions for the congregation. She went down into the water, and as she came up, she burst out in praise. We couldn’t understand a word she was saying, but the joy in her words and the tears streaming down her face told the story. 

I love baptisms. The beautiful picture of new life, friends and family all gathered to support, the cheers and the clapping when the new believer comes up from the water. I find baptisms to be one of the most joy-filled events in the life of a church. 

But this time, though surrounded by joy, I felt a twinge of sadness. When was the last time I felt such an overwhelming sense of joy that I couldn’t even hold it in?  

Like the joy of giving birth can often be quickly taken over by the exhaustion that comes with sleepless nights and worrying about how to keep this new little life alive, sometimes the slog of ministry can similarly creep up and we find our joy overtaken by frustration, exhaustion, or even just the mundane. Or maybe we are struggling with a particular sin, or we have disconnected ourselves from the faith community. Any of these things can cloud our joy. 

Whatever the reason it’s lost, how do we get the joy of the early days back? 

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51:12). After being confronted by Nathan for his affair with Bathsheba, David pleads to God to have mercy on him, to forgive his sins, and to restore his joy. David recognized that true joy is a gift of the Spirit and won’t be found in our circumstances, but only in our God.  

Whether it’s sin, weariness, or even the busyness of life that has stolen our joy, the only way to get it back is by reconnecting to the One who gave us that joy in the first place.