Faithful Doing

It is always amazing to me that, when you start to pay attention to something, it seems to pop up everywhere. Since I have been on my journey of joy, I have heard people talking about joy, seen quotes about joy, and encountered that word or its relatives all over.

Today, as I read "My Utmost for His Highest," I read this:

Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do.

This has also become a theme for me in recent weeks. Do that for which I am created; fulfill the ministry I've been given. I keep hearing that I need to be about my own work. And in this quote, I see that joy doesn't mean that I have great success in what I'm going. Joy is in being faithful to what I've been assigned,  even if it's a struggle or if obstacles come along.

Yesterday in my homeschool music class, I had fun. But I also had to pull out the stern voice a couple of times. Kids were a little hyped up. (It's probably this crazy weather that gets warm, cold, warm, cold, and so forth.) Anyway, my music class tends to be a little loose and free-flowing. But yesterday seems to be the day that everyone wanted to follow his own agenda and ignore what I was saying or how I was leading. So--the stern voice. (Ominous chord here.)

I wasn't feeling very accomplished or successful when I drove home. It wasn't major failure but I kept trying to figure out what I needed to do differently, to change for next week. I think it was just one of those things. Or they are feeling more comfortable with me. Or it was the end of a long day and they were ready to cut loose. Whatever.

I need to remember that the joy comes not in how successful things go (although I want to do my best). Joy comes as I fulfill what I should be doing - teaching and working with boys and girls, listening to them and learning with them.

Joy isn't pressure to succeed. Joy is realized in the doing of what we've been created to do.