Choosing Joy When Nothing Around You Supports It | Mornings with Mico

Good people, what's going on? My name is Meeko and welcome to my one-on-one time with God. We in Holy Week and today we're talking about faithfulness, we're talking about faithfulness. I'm reminded, right? I think whenever I think of faithfulness, the verse that typically comes to mind is, and it's not the verse that we'll be diving into today, but I can't talk about faithfulness honestly without bringing up this verse because I think it really sets the tone for faithfulness. It's in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 13 and it says, if we are faithless, he, God, remains faithful for he cannot disown himself. And I think this is, as we see his example of faithfulness, it sets the tone for what the mark is. His faithfulness, it's not a, there's no contingency with his faithfulness. If God's faithfulness was contingent upon our faithfulness, then his faithfulness would only be as reliable as our faithfulness because we could only say he's faithful if we're faithful. If I'm faithful, then I can trust God to be faithful. But the fact that he's like, no, regardless of how faithful you are, I'm going to be faithful because this is who I am. I think it really just, it kind of like draws a line in the sand between this idea of sometimes maybe in our flesh or in a secular world, what faithfulness should look like and what God's version of faithfulness looks like. I think faithfulness is, it's one of those gutsy declarations to declare faithfulness. It's not like a blind optimism or it's a choice, right? It's a choice. It's clinging to your integrity. It's clinging to, it takes fortitude, right? It's like, no, I will remain here. It takes grit. I think this is the posture that carries you through what you can't see. When you choose, you have a predetermined choice to be faithful. We're going to talk about that through, use the scriptures and have a good, what is it?

Chapter three, verse 17 through 19, we'll get there in a minute, but I want to pose this question first. Have you ever had to choose joy when literally nothing around you supported that choice? Like the whole bottom is falling out, right? And this isn't like a toxic positivity or just pretending that things are fine, but like choosing like joy in the midst of whatever, it could be whatever kind of chaos, right? It's a real, it's a, it's a gritty decision to believe something good is coming, whether it's coming from this, whether it's coming on the other end of it, whatever. But it's that choice. It's that, it's that, what's the word I'm looking for? It's like, it's like a stubborn, it's a stubborn faith. It's like, I'm not, you're not going to move me from this posture. And I know that's a lengthy question, but ultimately just asking, have you ever, have you ever chosen joy in a time like that? And like true joy, true inner joy. I think that's what these next verses, these next few verses here that we're going to unpack. That's, that's, that's what it, that's what it, that's what it shows. Starting at chapter three, verse 17, it says, though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God, my Savior, the sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes me, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to tread on the heights. Looking at this verse, what I, what I see here, I see this, like this onslaught of just those, right? Though the fig tree does not bud, though the olive crop fails, though there are no sheep in the pen. I think that, that, that's something to note here is that he isn't like being vague. He is being very specific in what.

Worst case, what worst case scenario looks like, right? Like he's using his language, people who are, you know, in the agriculture world, like these are worst case scenarios right here, right? Like like for the the olive crops to fail, for the field to not be producing food, for the fig tree to not bud. And there are no grapes on a vine and there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle when it's like this is like this is broke. This is this is like worst case scenario, right? Like this is all of the things that that sustains your livelihood. And yet you're saying all of this, all of these things, though, all of this, this catastrophic situation, catastrophic situation here is is at play. Yet. I will rejoice in the Lord. I think that. Just in a just just being very real, man, we don't get to control the doves in our life, though this happened, though this may happen. We don't always have control over the doves. We just typically like experience them. Like they just kind of come our way. That's just life. But while we may not get to choose our doves, we do get to choose our yet. Why? You don't choose it, though you do get to choose your yet. And. Choosing our yet like that is as a believer, like that's what separates us from the rest of the world. Everybody has some sort of yet, right? As believers, we're placing our yet in God's hands. And I want to be mindful, like to be clear that this isn't like denial of the those this isn't pretending like, you know, like what you're dealing with isn't what you're dealing with.

This isn't that. Please don't hear that. That is not what we're saying. That's not what I'm saying. That's not even what Habakkuk here is saying. He's not even pretending that he's acknowledging all of these terrible things happening, you know, in his in his world. What he's saying is my hope isn't tied to whether everything is fine or not. He's not saying, no, everything is fine. Like, no, everything is not fine. But he's saying my hope isn't tied to everything, to whether everything is fine or not. And let me just be real with you, like to get that. Truth here and here. It's like that anchors you in this walk. It gives you a different level of resilience and peace. In rooms, you walk in amongst friends, amongst family to to to be fully aware of the those in your life. And yet I will rejoice in God. Yet I'm choosing to hope in you. Yet I'm trusting you. Like that's what like if that's one of as much as you're praying, like for the things that you want in life, I encourage you be praying for that. Lord, give me give me a stubborn yet. Give me a firm yet. Give me give me give me a yet like deep in my soul. Like make that a part of like just who I am. Make that an identifying trait of mine, Lord, that that. My yet is is is is is how people know me. Yeah, that person did with this did it. Yet they were still so joyful. Yet I have never met someone so patient.

Yet I have never met someone so kind after all of that. Yet they still cling to their faith. Yet they still have the audacity to hope. Yet they still believe. That's that's a game changer for you, fam. And this walk, that is a game changer. I want to land on this. This is one this is this is what I'm hoping for you to take away as I'm playing back everything that I just say, ultimately wanting us to to arrive at a place where we can acknowledge that faithfulness is it's not a feeling. It's a decision you make in the dark. Trusting that the light will return. Got a. I got I got I got something for you to reflect on, and I would actually like you to engage with us in this. Like I said, we all have our those. We get to choose our yet. I want you to. If you feel so inclined, reach out to us. At prison at Crossroads dot net. And in a subject line. You can put though t h o u g h, though those slash yet y t. And I want you to if again, if you feel inclined to to show. Share with us, what is your though? What are some of those that you may be struggling with? And what is your yet? Want to know this one so we can be praying with you and so we know how to walk alongside you in this, man. Share what is that, all right?

We'll love that. And if not, then just do it in your alone time. Do it in your journal. Take some time and reflect that and declare that. Though, whatever it may be, what are you declaring? Your yet is your declaration. What are you declaring? I want to pray for us. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your faithfulness that sets the tone, that sets the bar. A bar that we'll probably never be able to meet, but Lord, we continue to push forward. Though, whatever may follow yet, we will declare that we will spend the rest of our life walking with you and growing closer to you. Lord, grow us in our yet. Affirm us in our yet. Make concrete in our heart, our yet. I'm proud of us in your son, Jesus' name. Amen. See y'all tomorrow.