June 16th, 2011: Joyfully Made Jenni McIntire

If you possessed the courage, talent, and resources to do anything in the world what would you do?

I am very fortunate to be doing a couple of things that I absolutely love. I have always enjoyed performing and making people laugh. I get to do that on a weekly basis now at SAK Comedy Lab. I think I would love to have the drive to really use those things that I love to further God’s kingdom. Also, I wish I could dance like the people on So You Think You Can Dance, but I think that ship has already sailed…

Devotional:

I have been struggling a lot lately with happiness. I used to be a pretty happy person, I think. Now, I have a hard time getting excited about anything. I thought that maybe some of it was because I am a “grown up” now. But, as I sat and listened to the speaker at our last Radiant Girlz Nite, I had kind of a thought. I think that God may be calling me to him by kind of diminishing the amount of pleasure I get out of things that distract me from him. It was just a hypothesis, but I kept mulling it over in my head. In my last post, I mentioned that I read to my son from the Jesus Storybook Bible. I love it, so I am going to use a couple of passages from it to illustrate my point. This quote comes from the story of the Tower of Babel:

“But God wasn’t pleased with them. God could see what they were doing. They were trying to live without him, but God knew that wouldn’t make them happy or safe or anything. If they kept on like this, they would only destroy themselves, and God loved them too much to let that happen. So he stopped their plans.”

I think this made sense to me. God loves me too much to let me spend my life chasing “happiness for a moment” kind of stuff. He wants me to find true happiness in Him. I don’t think he’s doing it to be mean (although, at times, I think I have felt that way). He is doing it to bring me back to him. I don’t think that he is telling me to give up all these little things I used to enjoy. I believe that he is trying to get my attention and wants me to be reminded, through time with him in prayer and Bible study, of all that he has done for me and how much he loves me. There is another story of Ezra and Nehemiah reading the rules God had given to Moses to the Jews. The people started to get extremely upset, tears in their eyes, realizing that they had not followed the rules, worrying that God would punish them. Ezra stopped reading, shut the book, and declared that they were going to have a party.

“’God wants us to be happy!’ Ezra said. All day long they listened to stories about the wonderful things God had done for his people. How he made the world. How he gave a special promise to Abraham. How he rescued them from slavery. How he spoke to Moses and showed them how to live. How he brought them to a special land. How he rescued them—no matter what, time after time, over and over again—because of his Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.”

So, God does want me to be happy, and he shows me that through his Word and through time with him. Now, I just need to not get caught up in the busyness that is our modern lives and start devoting that time to being reminded of God’s love.

Prayer:

Please pray for me that I would continue to seek God and become a more happy, joyful person through his strength.