Back to Front

“Sometimes the best way to move forward is to go back...back to the joy of why you first began.”

Loren Thornburg

We get lost. Lost in the work, lost in the motions, lost in the details, so lost that we forget why we even began. It’s that feeling when you enter a room knowing you came for a reason but unsure of why. When that happens to me I have to go back to the room I started in to remember why I went to the other room in the first place. Similarly we have to do that with our lives. We have to go back to where we started to know why we got started. Often our dreams are filled with many steps between starting and living it and it’s easy to get lost in the middle if we are not willing to go back to why we began. We have to bring the joy of that dream to the front of our minds and let that joy push us forward. For when joy is lost so is our strength to continue. Go back and let the joy that started you keep you going.

“The joy of the Lord is our strength”

Nehemiah 8:10

God is constantly calling us back. Back to Him! For He knows that in coming back to Him we will find all that we need. God knows exactly what we need and when we need it. He knows we need the strength that comes in His joy. This strength is not so much our own being strong as it is a place of safety, refuge and protection. It is the joy of the Lord that brings us protection that allows us to be strengthened. This joy is different from just being happy but a deep, sustainable gladness that moves us to rejoicing, not changed by circumstances, but found within regardless of what happens. There are many reasons to be discouraged and dismayed yet only one that can bring us joy in the midst of these and that is the Lord. So it is by our Lord and our joy in Him that we find the place of strength to endure in the midst of hardship. Just as Nehemiah encouraged the people into joy so hear his words encouraging you. There is joy in the Lord and it gives great strength!