How to Find Joy When the Life You Have Is Not the Life You Hoped ForSample

Stop #1: Self-Examination and Lament

During Israel’s decades of wandering in the wilderness, Joshua becomes Moses’ servant and one of his most trusted and courageous captains. For those forty years, Joshua served Moses faithfully. And then, right before Israel is finally set to lay claim to the land of Canaan, in Deuteronomy 31, Moses announces his impending death.

Moses would not be leading Israel through this pivotal moment in their history. Joshua would experience the fulfillment of a forty-year journey without the man who had led the nation through it all. But Moses did not leave Joshua empty-handed. In Deuteronomy 34:9, we are told that Joshua is filled with the “spirit of wisdom” when Moses lays hands on him.

While we see the Holy Spirit permanently indwell believers in the New Testament, in the Old Testament he temporarily indwells certain people to help them achieve specific tasks. Joshua is one of these people, and by the power and help of the Spirit, he had been given the wisdom he needed to navigate his season of longing.

The spirit of wisdom would help Joshua examine himself so that he could make the adjustments that would enable him, and Israel, to experience the fullness of life that God had set out for them.

Self-examination helps us push against the cultural current of constant connection with other people. It requires that we get alone with God, pushing pause and assessing how our hearts and lives align with “the way everlasting,” or the way that God has designed for us to follow.

As hard as this is, here’s some good news. God does not seek to leave you in this place, but to lead you to a place of comfort and healing. Hope for renewed joy is possible; it starts with examining our expectations, acknowledging our pain and embracing the loss our longing represents.

God gave Joshua time to embrace his loss. He doesn't just tell him to get over it or overload him with other activities so that he’ll be distracted. No, through the practice of lament God gave Joshua time to navigate the sorrow, disappointment, and despair he must have felt.

Suffering is an invitation to lament to God.1 To lament is to ask God to intervene in our situation. But we only ask God to intervene because we believe he can and will. To pray this kind of prayer requires that we relinquish control over the situation, acknowledging our limitedness. Though, while we have limits, God does not. Lament stands on the fullness of God’s character and demands for His character to be made manifest in our lives.

Friends, lament helps us trust that God’s past blessings will extend into both our present and future realities. But simultaneously, lament stirs something in us. It births in us a small seed whose glimmering light of resilience pushes us to keep walking, fueled by the belief that someway, somehow, we will “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps. 27:13 NIV). ‘

Where does lament lead us?

To the next stop on our journey: hope.