No Greater Joy ~ Kelly DeMoville

3 John 1:4 - “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”

This verse has been on my mind quite a bit recently as my family and I have just spent ten weeks back in America traveling through a large portion of our great country. We have been missionaries in the Philippines for almost sixteen years (this June), and this is the longest time we’ve come off the field. We traveled with six of our ten children ages seven to twenty and were also able to see our oldest four, as well as our three adorable grandchildren.

My husband, six of our children, and I spent just about 24 hours a day/7 days a week together. We ate together, rode in airplanes and cars together, sometimes all slept in the same room together, played games together, and shared one bathroom for most of that time in different homes and hotels from West to East, from North to South. I told my husband before we left the Philippines that we were either going to love each other more or hate each other by the time this was over. I happy to say that we still love each other.

There was a couple of days during our travels where all ten of our children were in the same room or sitting at the same table. I soaked up every bit of those moments. I sat there praising the Lord that all of our teenage and adult children right now love the Lord and are following what they believe God’s will is for their lives. I watched them love each other, tease each other, laugh with each other, and share fun memories with one another. I watched our adult children sit with their dad and ask him questions and talk to him. I enjoyed trying to save 12-15 seats in church so we could sit together. I don’t know when or even if all of our children will ever be in the same room together again, so I enjoyed every single moment of the times when it happened.

I could be sad as I think about the future, knowing that was probably the last time to enjoy them altogether this side of heaven, or I could focus on the joy that comes from knowing they are doing what God wants them to do. My prayer since finding I was expecting each one of them has been that God would allow us to rear them for Him, and they would follow His path for their lives. I choose to joy in answered pray.

We all have a choice in our every day life. We can complain that our life doesn’t look like someone else’s, or we can rejoice in the good that God has given to us. Most of us could think of way more good in our lives than bad if we would stop and think. I’m afraid it’s easier to complain and compare than think and rejoice. If nothing else, we can rejoice that out of over 8 billion people in this world, we heard the Gospel and will not only have a home in Heaven some day, but we can have a relationship with our Heavenly Father today.

Don’t allow the devil to whisper lies in your ear that rob you of the joy that God wants you to have in this life. Psalm 16:11 - "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Psalm 32:11 - “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.”

Let the joy of the Lord shine through you today. To rejoice is a choice that you have to make on purpose.