Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy – John 16:20 NIV
God does not tell us exactly when the joy is suppose to come into our lives, but if we look to Jesus and obey His Word, come it surely will.
When Jesus said these words, He was about to leave His disciples. The disciples had left everything to follow Jesus. Now they were being told that He was to leave them. So Jesus comforts them with this thought: “You will mourn and have grief, but your grief will turn into joy.”
What is Jesus saying? He is saying that sometimes before one can experience the presence of joy, he first must wrestle with sorrow. You and I wouldn’t really understand the significance of joy, unless we already dealt with sorrow to some degree.
There is a fine line between pleasure and pain. For example, when you get ready to take a hot bath, you will fill the tub with hot steaming water and then you slowly get in. As you sink to the bottom of the tub, there is a moment of pain. But as you settle in and as your body becomes use to the temperature of the hot water, the pain turns into pleasure.
I use to lift weights in my much younger days in high school. I got up to bench pressing 335 pounds. There were scores of times as I lifted those heavy weights that I would catch a cramp. That was pain. But when the pain subsided, the pleasure followed. Do you see what I am saying? There is a fine line between pleasure and pain.
A marathon runner often experiences pain while running, yet he or she keeps running, because in the midst of the pain, there is also pleasure in the endurance.
Therefore, when you read and obey God’s Word, joy may not come to you instantly. Don’t give up and say, “forget it.” Hang in there and keep on reading. God wants you to have His joy, but sometimes before He gives it to you, pain may be something you will need to wrestle with first.
