Do you have joy in the midst of your sorrow? Only Christians can have that.

The worldly can have sorrow in the midst of their joy. But they can never have joy in the midst of their sorrow. How so?

Imagine a group of unbelieving people enjoying watching football together at a restaurant. There is joy involved in it. However, as they see a commercial on preparing for old age, their minds go to the subject they do not want to think about – death. They know they will die one day. That will make them sorrowful (sorrow in the midst of their joy). But they will not want to dwell on it too long and therefore, their minds will shift to something else more pleasant.

But what about when they are sorrowful? Can they find joy in the midst of their sorrows? For example, say, they lost a loved one. They are grieving. But what reason would there be for them to rejoice? As they are grieving over their loved one’s death, they can only think about their own death. That will bring sorrow upon sorrow with no escape. Everything they value and treasure will end with death…

But for Christians, we can be rejoicing even in our sorrows. “… sorrowful yet always rejoicing” 2 Cor. 6:10. How so? We know that death (sorrowful) is only a gateway to paradise (joy).

The last sentence of the last book of C.S. Lewis’s epic The Chronicles of Narnia says:

“All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

The worst that can happen to us is that we die and be in the arms of Jesus.

“Rejoice! Again, I say rejoice!”

PH