Thursday: I Have No Problems
WEEK 32
THURSDAY
I HAVE NO PROBLEMS
1 Peter 1:6-8
It is said in the Gospels: “At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). When this is so, you are not dependent on your surroundings for joy; the springs are within.
The joy of the Acts is of that kind, “They had them beaten. They ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, then let them go. The apostles left the council rejoicing” (Acts 5:40-41). Rejoicing in what? Nothing around them; it was within them. Another revealing passage, “But the Jews . . . stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them, and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit” (13:50-51 RSV). There is a difference between “filled with joy” and “filled with the Holy Spirit”; the joy subsides, the Holy Spirit abides. The Holy Spirit is the abiding root of which the joy is the fruit. The Holy Spirit, when we surrender, is always in the subconscious but sometimes emerges into the conscious as joy. When the joy is not always there as a bubbling joy, it is always there as peace. Peace is joy seated with hands folded, serene and calm.
I described the amazing joy of “Mary” in my book Growing Spiritually, detailing how she went through an accident in which she and her family were smashed up and her husband killed—went through on wings and without a tear. Mary is the bubbling, radiant type. A woman of an opposite type met the same experience in the same way. A month after her husband was killed in a motor accident, Iva came to me and said,
I have no problems. I am living in glory. Apparently God took over my subconscious and worked through it. People said I was in a shock, and I would come back to sanity. But if this is insanity, I want it to continue! It’s a miracle, for I am not naturally this kind of person. I’ve been the type who is seeking and anxious, and here I’ve found I am calm and composed. It is a miracle.
She too went through tragedy on wings and without a tear. So the joy of the Holy Spirit won through different temperaments with the same result.
Blessed Spirit, you are the spring of my joy. Therefore I can have joy amid the joyless, ease amid the peaceless, and victory amid the vanquished. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I have no problems, for all my problems are possibilities—possibilities for victory.