Joy is God’s Design – Even in Winter
Have you considered that joy in the dead of winter is God’s design for our lives?
One January, COVID came knocking for the second time. It was while we were required to isolate for a minimum of 10 days. I’m a mom of two teens so honestly, the isolation was a welcome respite—at least for the first few days.
Time alone provided the gift of reflection and my word for the year: JOY.
It was winter, a season in which I used to think nothing happened. It’s my least favorite time of the year.
My one word for January: blah!
In my mind, winter is the precursor to the real seasons. How does anyone pursue joy when everything out there is deader than dead?!
Leviticus 25 offers four ways to choose joy in the winter.
Leviticus is dedicated to worship. Flip back to the third book of your Bible and you’ll find this guidebook for all the duties and responsibilities the Levites had in honoring God and leading God’s people.
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First, God outlines how He will address sin among them. God makes reconnection with Him possible with parameters He’s designed.
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Later, Moses describes how God’s people are called to holiness through festivals and celebrations. Have you ever considered celebration as a move toward holiness?
Toward the end of this 27-chapter book sits a gem of festivity. It’s the Jubilee Year and it describes how God’s people are instructed to live holy lives through celebration.
The Jubilee Year Helps Us Choose Joy in Winter.
God is holy, yes. But His holiness leads to worship and celebration.
The Jubilee Year begins on the Day of Atonement in the 50th Year.
Then on the Day of Atonement in the fiftieth year, blow the ram’s horn loud and long throughout the land. Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan. This fiftieth year will be a jubilee year for you. During that year you must not plant your fields or store away any of the crops that grow on their own, And don’t gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. It will be a jubilee year for you and you must keep it holy. But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own. Leviticus 25: 9-12, NLT.
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Everyone knows about it and participates.
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Debts canceled. Slaves freed. Land returned.
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No storing up or planting.
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Trust in God’s provision.
The Year of Jubilee is a time of acknowledging that everyone and everything belongs to God. It’s a season of God’s people being set apart for growth in holiness.
Here’s what blows my mind about the Jubilee Year:
the Year of Jubilee has never been formally celebrated.
Why did God prescribe something that’s never happened and won’t this side of eternity? And how does it help us choose joy in winter?
Choose Joy Even in Captivity.
God prescribed the Jubilee Year while the Israelites were living in captivity.
‘Winter’ blew all around them—hardening hearts, accumulating loss, and regretting distance from God. The Jubilee Year summoned God’s people to celebrate, worship, and draw near to God—even while they were living in captivity.
Consider freshly fallen snow.
It’s beautiful—glittering those white crystals of perfection. But soon enough, it loses its beauty and gives way to encrusted, exhaust-colored grossness. (I’m sure that’s not a real word but you get the image.)
The Jubilee Year shows us how to choose joy when our circumstances aren’t at all joyful. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve put ourselves in the situation or someone else has carelessly tossed us there.
God prescribes joy for things that trouble us and hold us captive.
CHARA MEANS JOY
The Greek word for joy is “chara.” It describes that inner feeling of gladness, delight, and rejoicing. As one writer put it,
“[Joy] is a depth of assurance and confidence that ignites a cheerful heart.”
Joy is what bubbles up in us knowing that we’ve been made right with God through Jesus.
Joy is the overflow of knowing that God is at work in us because of our salvation. It’s what God intended for His People when he prescribed the Year of Jubilee.
Joy is therefore both a pathway and a reflection of God’s holiness at work in us.
God’s joy isn’t some happy-skip-through-life-smile-on-our-faces.
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Joy in winter is the result of practiced choices returning to God, the source of joy, the same way the Israelites were called to return to the land.
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Joy in winter grows when we set aside our need to produce, accomplish, and show something for all our hard work. Jubilee halts the striving, the late nights, the stress-induced reactions of having to toil the ground of the land—whatever it looks like in your day.
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Joy in winter is the fruit of stepping back and allowing God’s plans and purposes to play out over our own. Joy inhabits us when we immerse ourselves in the abundance and the richness of God’s provision.
Four Ways to Choose Joy in Winter.
1. Recognize when you’re not there.
Joy requires an unsettledness in us that leads us back to God. We were created for more than being “nice, good people who go to church on Sundays.” Until we become unsettled about our lack of joy, joy remains a distant companion.
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Get honest with God and with yourself about who you really are and what you’re really like.
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Allow unsettledness to lead you in confession of a lack of joy. Then, be bold in asking God for more.
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Live welcomed by God. God welcomed the Israelites when they owned their distance from Him and His joy. It’s no different for you and me today.
2. Acknowledge God’s interventions in your life.
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Identify where God has been at work in your life. God laid out the Jubilee Year so that the Israelites could see God’s provision for them.
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Practice gratitude. Gratitude is the rich soil in which joy grows. Where has God provided for you? When has God come alongside you and made a way when there wasn’t one?
3. Nurture joy, intentionally.
God gave the Israelites an entire year to relearn the rhythms of grace that lead to joy. For them to learn how to choose joy in winter.
I can hear the quiet whispers: but no one ever celebrated the Jubilee Year—and we don’t either. I have a job, a family to raise, and responsibilities that don’t disappear because I want more joy!
God prescribed the Jubilee Year as a time for
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Reconnection with God.
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Realignment with who God is and what God’s like—regardless of what’s going on around you.
And here’s a little secret: the more we set ourselves apart for God, the more He fills us with the capacity to be engaged and present with those around us.
4. Expand God’s reach through your joy.
The Jubilee Year included everyone—even those who had little or no regard for God. Joy is contagious and meant to impact the people and space around us. If our pattern of living isn’t impacting people in God’s direction, then it’s not joy and we’re not there yet.
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Identify someone who needs an infusion of joy.
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Choose joy with challenging people in your life.
Winter joy’s invitation?
Will you move toward holiness–and celebration?
FOR YOUR REFLECTION
- Where is God inviting you to make room for joy this season?
- If this were your Jubilee Year, what would you celebrate?
Joy isn’t for the privileged few.
It’s the result of practiced choices no matter how hard the winds of winter blow.
FOR YOU TO PRAY
God of all joy,
Thank you that joy isn’t for the privileged few or for people in the right place at the right time. Because of Jesus, joy is mine to receive and live into.
Help me see this journey toward joy as a holy one—setting me apart as one welcomed by you and received into Your joy.
Holy Spirit, equip me with your joy around others this week—that they too would experience Your joy, through me.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Until next time, may God’s generous grace (and joy) be your companion along the way.
If you’d like to listen to the podcast that accompanies this post, follow this link.