Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Ps 51:11–12.
This scripture takes me in two directions. On one hand I see a person who has been born again but finds themselves in dreary state of living. The abundant life that Jesus has given has been ignored and life is just meh (I know that’s terrible grammar but you get the point). The other thing that I think about is a person claiming to be born again but is ok being disobedient and lives life almost carefree. They usually claim the old days when they attended church and participated in church events as their proof of salvation. They say something like “I’m just a backslider.” My guess is that if the conversation had never arisen they would have just kept on sliding right into hell. You can’t continue in sin wihthout remorse for a lifetime and claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It just doesn’t line up.
To my first impression, what makes a person lose their joy? I would say there are many things but all of them are allowed in. They don’t force themselves into our life and push out the joy. No, they make themselves a desirable choice and we choose to let them in. Not only do we allow them in but give them a place in line in front of joy. Our joy gets shuffled to the back and we wake up one day and realize that our joy is missing. How did that happen? Did God move? No. Did the miracle of my salvation become any less of a miracle? No. We changed. We allowed the world to conform us.
Today remember the day of your salvation. Remember the joy and the light feeling of being free from the burden of sin. Choose to remember that the miracle happened to you and someone else is waiting on that same miracle.