Joy and Gloom

“Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.” James 4:9

What? How in the world can I turn laughter into mourning and my joy into gloom? That seems impossible right? I believe what James is saying to God’s people here is there is unrepentant sin and there is a capacity within oneself to receive that knowledge from the Holy Spirit without necessarily feeling it (which is what we call conviction). When confronted with that knowledge I can either keep on going like nothing has happened (laughter and joy) or I can see my sin and partner with the Holy Spirit and grieve with Him about what I have done (joy and gloom). James says faith without actions is dead right? So if I punch you in the face and come up laughing about it saying I am sorry, am I really sorry? Or would it settle better with you if I came to you broken and maybe even crying telling you I do not deserve your forgiveness but I am asking anyways. The same goes with what I call “acts conducive towards repentance”. Remember when people in the Old Testament would tear their clothes and lay in sackcloth and ashes? Some of us just pass that off as ‘legalism’ but I think that is a very dangerous judgment call. They were partnering with God about how grieved they were about their personal (and/or corporate) sin. As the old adage goes “actions speak louder than words”. Here is my subjective take on this. A while back when dealing with certain sin in my life, I was scarily cold towards it. Meaning, I knew it was wrong and it actually scared me that I was so cold towards it (meaning I didn’t feel anything bad about it). So what do I begin praying? “Lord, restore my conscience in this area, I desire inside to actually feel about this sin the way you do.” I believe God was showing me how to actively turn my “laughter into mourning and my joy to gloom.” Maybe that’s where some of you are at now, you are stooped in something waist high and you know its wrong because of what scripture says about it but are afraid because you feel nothing towards it. Try an “act conducive towards repentance”, turn your laughter into mourning (humble yourself before the Lord) and your joy to gloom, in other words, “He rejects the prideful but gives grace unto the humble.” You do that and you will begin to be restored, because God is not a liar and He loves you. So remember brothers and sisters, when the Word of God says one thing and you just so happen to feel another, the Word of God trumps our feelings if they are not in harmony with His Word. Pray until your heart is re-aligned with His and you see things how He sees them again. Please do not underestimate the importance of not just knowing something is wrong, but feeling the way God feels towards it as well.