Our new ministry in Ecuador is manual labor. And lots of it. We ride four busses to get to the site and three to get back home every day. We work at about 11,000 feet and trudge up and down the hills for hours. We have to mix cement, shovel rocks, dig trenches, unload bricks, carry wheelbarrow loads of 100+, climb down dirt mounds with those loads, dump the load, and do everything all over again. We slip, fall in poop, trip, twist ankles, face plant, mess up the cement, sweat and then freeze, get muddy, get dirty, get sunburned, smell to high heaven, and then have to take a cold shower. Yeah, you guessed it, that’s all in one day’s work.
Sounds horrendous; we probably complain the whole time, right? I mean what a lame ministry to get. Other people get to work with kids or college students and we get to smell bad all day and wake up sore. Not fair, why us.
That is, it’s not fair for the other teams. We got blessed with the best ministry opportunity. Sure, it is hard, back breaking work, but it has such a satisfying result.
You see, we are building this hunk of a cement wall to protect the people inside. This house on the hill was built to shelter little girls who have been the victims of abuse, rape, and sex trafficking. It is a safe haven far away from the horrors they were rescued out of. The wall that is being raised by pure human muscle is what is going to protect them from this outside world.
And you know what else is so cool? We get to choose joy through the whole event. We get to smile through the down pour of rain making everything muddy. We get to laugh when we drop a wheelbarrow because our hands lost their strength. Our hearts get to sing when we get to bless the other workers with much needed gloves. We get to chuckle when sheep and cows make us jump at their call. We get to choose joy while building the foundation for these young girls who have been through so much. We get to be joyful while doing the backbreaking work of God.
We could do all this work with a stale, hard heart. We could grumble our days away. And, yes, the work would get done. But is that how you bring glory to God? Will God feel glorified with that attitude? The answer is probably standing out to you; it is no. God is glorified when the worker has joy in her spirit.
Deuteronomy 16:15 “For the Lord you God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands and your joy will be complete.”
All my toil and muscle aches will be blessed and I will have complete joy.
Nehemiah 8:10 “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
My strength will come from the joy of God’s work, the joy the Lord gives me.
Psalm 30:11 “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”
The joy that I feel for the work we are doing is from the Lord. He is the one that gives us joy.
Hebrews 12:2 “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him he endured the cross scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Jesus endured the most suffering. He set the tone for how we should live. When things get hard, we need to not lose our joy. It is a joyous occasion to “suffer” for the name of Jesus.
James 1:2 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.”
Trials are a pure joy because the Lord entrusted us with them. If they are in the name of the Lord, it is a great joy to suffer like Jesus suffered.
This study on joy has given me a deeper insight and a deeper inspiration to carry joy with me wherever I go. I am going to work with joy all the days at this worksite. Try having joy in the hard things, you may just be surprised.
