“Dr. Oh’s office called and he wants to see me,” Roger said to me as I walked into the kitchen. My heart felt like it twisted into a knot and was held by a vice for a minute. Dread is a heavy thing, I noted. I went into the other room and began to pray in the Spirit. My mind was swirling but I knew I needed to find my anchor. I needed the truth of my God.
Roger had just had his second PET scan after finishing radiation and chemo treatments. He had gotten a clean bill of health in July and we were expecting another… But when the call came from his oncologist’s office stating that his doctor needed to see Roger immediately, I felt the imploding vortex of chaos beginning to pull me in.
No! I cannot afford to entertain these fear-based thoughts. I will not get sucked into this drowning whirlpool of devastation. It’s one thing to get told your spouse has cancer… and go through the months of grueling treatments to fight it. It’s another thing to consider having to do it again…
In this place, I needed one of my strongest weapons: Joy.
Joy is one of the most powerful offensive weapons I have ever experienced.
Why is it so powerful? Because the enemy has no context for it.
Obedience to the LORD is wonderful and necessary, but the enemy understands the concept of obedience. From his vantage point obedience is control. In his camp it’s called bondage; but he understands it.
But following God in joy—overcoming temptation, rising above disappointment and fear, from a stance of joy—is something that puts the enemy in a tailspin.
Joy simply confuses him.
Just like the children of Israel who blew trumpets and hit pitchers, throwing confusion into the enemy’s camp, so our joy brings confusion to his camp.
Joy is the highest, most effective kind of warfare.
The enemy tempts us to take our eyes off the truth and goodness of the LORD and put our focus on difficulties, or a bad report. But joy allows us to rise above our circumstances. It seeds desperation in the enemy’s camp, and scrambles his plans.
As Roger and I drove to the doctor’s appointment that day and sat in the waiting room... and waited… we looked to Him. We began to filter our thoughts through His truth. We remembered the price He paid for us. We invited His Spirit into our difficulty, and we declared His attributes.
And, I remembered the power of joy. I didn’t feel joyful but I have come to understand how joy crushes the head of the enemy and takes ground in the Kingdom of God.
Gratefully, Roger got a clean bill of health and has been cancer-free for over a year and a half now, but regardless of what we go through we must remember that the ways of God and the ways of the enemy are mutually exclusive.
We cannot be full of self-pity and joy at the same time;
or fear and joy,
or disappointment and joy,
or comparison and joy,
or resentment, or hopelessness, or doubt, or anxiety and joy.
So, this day, let us choose the ways of God. Let us choose joy. Let us choose truth. And let us remember that since the enemy has nothing that can overcome joy, his biggest strategy is to keep us far from it—to keep us focused on what isn’t working. May we resist this trap and, instead, focus on the Victorious One who sits in the heavens and laughs (Psalm 2:4).
May we laugh with God and wield the power of His joy in every situation!