Everlasting Joy is Coming

Where do we find the strength to go on when our weakness and sin seems to drag us down? Listen for some good news.

I’m in the mood for some good news.

Aren’t you?

My life isn’t really any different from yours. I have to get up in the morning and try to figure out how I’m going to get all the stuff done that I need to get done with what I have at hand. I have to figure out how to care for my husband, my kids, their kids, my aging mother, my friends, and the folks in the church who need me. I have to figure out how to do the work God’s given me to do.

Then I look around at my resources and I see just what you see when you look at your resources: There never seems to be enough of the right stuff to accomplish the work I need to do. And then, of course, there’s the problem of my sin. I simply don’t know how I’m going to have the wherewithal to do what I need to do when I need to do it. I need some good news.

Everlasting Joy is Coming

Isaiah 35:1–10 has some good news for us: For those who trust in the Savior, an everlasting joy is promised. A day is coming when there will be more than enough of everything, and all my desires for sin will have been transformed into love for him. I’ll see the burning sands of this sin-riddled world transformed into cleansing, life-giving pools, and I’ll watch the thirsty ground change into springs of water. All the places where dangerous adversaries used to find shelter will be transformed into the river of God’s delights (Ps. 36:8). This is God’s doing!

For those who trust in the Savior, an everlasting joy is promised.

How will this happen? How will we get to this oasis? Our Savior, Jesus the God-Man, has paved the way. He cut the road out of the rocky ground and covered it with the stones of his good works, cementing them together with his blood. He’s made it all the way past the cross and paved the road right into the throne room of God for us.

Even Fools Can’t Miss It

I love how the ESV translates Isaiah 35:8b: “It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.”

That means I qualify. It means that even in my foolishness, weakness, and sin, I and all who believe will finally and at last find the gladness and joy that had always been out of reach. Now that’s really good news!

How are we to respond to such soul-satisfying good news? With trust. Trust that the One who paved the way on that highway is also able to get us all the way home.

“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isaiah 35:10)

This post is adapted from Elyse Fitzpatrick’s Advent devotional, Counting the Days, Lighting the Candles.