The world tells us to get joy. It tells us to fill our lives with the things that bring us pleasure or make our lives that much easier or more convenient. Savoring the latest coffee, newest shoes, or beautiful flowers.

But God tells us a different story.

Our first year in France stretched me hard. Language study, enduring the long winter, building relationships, and watching my family struggle through adjustment left me deeply discouraged, depleted, and dry. I knew that once “real ministry started” I would have a clearer reminder of my purpose and the joy set before me. I kept thinking, “I just have to make it to Springtime. I’ll get more sunlight, I’ll be able to go running, and there will be beautiful flowers. When Spring comes, I will be fine.”

As sure as the sun, Spring arrived, bringing along with her longer daylight hours, flowers galore, and more time to explore the running trails. My French proficiency had progressed a bit and I had more relationships. My joy, however, did not return. 

While I had moments of delight and happiness–I took stunning photographs and had visits with fabulous friends–I would find myself searching for contentment the following day.

One day while running through a beautifully tended historical French garden with flowers, butterflies, and birds lifting my mood, it dawned on me, “Laurie, this is good, but this is not what you’ve been waiting for.”

I came before the Lord, repenting for how I had fixed my heart on the lie that lasting joy could be found in anything temporal. I began a new season of walking in worship with my eyes to him. I worshipped him for who he is and I thanked him for the countless ways he had sustained me in the past. I remembered all the ways he had answered prayers in the prior year. 

As I spent that season with a renewed drive to enter into worship, it was hard work. I had to choose to turn my heart to him and give thanks to him. However, as I worshipped the Lord, I found myself in his presence, no longer caught up on the mountain of language learning I had left to do. As my heart found its hope in the Lord, I was able to lift my eyes from the seemingly unchanging hard reality to the God who gives us purpose and delight. I was able to thank the Lord for the treasures along the way–the beauty, the friendships, and the opportunity to exercise. But my hope and my joy was being planted into something eternal.