Dear Friends,

Anglicans often read Psalm 100 at the opening of Morning Prayer:

1   O be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; *
serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.

2   Be assured that the Lord, he is God; *  it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

3   O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; *be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.

4   For the Lord is gracious, his mercy is everlasting, *and his truth endures from generation to generation.

 I think it is striking that this Psalm gives us commands to do things that we usually describe as simply feelings: be joyful, serve with gladness, be thankful. How often the Bible exhorts us not just to do the right thing, but to have the right attitude.

We tend to think that our attitude, our feelings, depend on the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Has God brought you to that place where you’ve learned that Jesus’ joy is so often unrelated to your life circumstances, unrelated to what is going on outwardly in your life?

 Have you noticed that some days you might be surrounded by chaos and face crisis upon crisis, yet you experience the supernatural joy of the Lord in the midst of it all? And then there are other days, when outwardly things are smooth sailing, but inside you’re a wreck?

Jesus’ joy is unrelated to circumstances. The key to finding joy is not in having everything around you go well, as wonderful as that is. The key to finding joy is giving thanks and praise to God, no matter what is going on around you. Praise lifts us out of our pain and frustration and brings us into a place of supernatural peace. Thanksgiving brings emotional and spiritual and even physical well-being.

When someone asks me how things are going, I find that my first thought—one I often voice—is almost instinctively, “I have much to be thankful for.” I can then go on to acknowledge and reflect on painful difficulties, but I think that starting from a place of thanksgiving has helped me seek the Lord in the face of challenges.

Psalm 100 verse 4 says, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving.” The Message version of the Bible puts it this way: “Enter with the password: ‘Thank you!’” I love that.

 As we face adversity, let’s bring words of thankfulness to our minds and to our lips, that we might enter into the Lord’s presence and abide in his peace.

 Faithfully yours in Christ,

The Rt. Rev. John A. M. Guernsey