April 17 – The Two Joys
My children, I come. Hearts eager to do My Will, send out a call that ever I find irresistible. I know no barrier then.
Resignation to My Will keeps Me barred out from more Hearts than does unbelief. Can anything be such a crime against Love as being resigned? My Will should be welcomed with a glad wonder if I am to do My Work in the heart and life.
The only resignation that could possibly be acceptable to Me is when Self, ousted by My claims, accepts the inevitable and resigns the throne for Me, leaving My Disciple free to carry out My Will, to welcome My Will gladly, rapturously.
In all true discipleship, and in the true spiritual development of each disciple, there is first the wonder and the joy of first acquaintance, then comes the long plain stretch of lesson-learning and discipline, when Joy seems so much a thing of the past as never to be recaptured again.
But the constant experience of Me, the constant persistent recognition of My Work in daily happenings — the ever accumulating weight of evidence in support of My Guidance — the numberless instances in which seeming chance or wonderful coincidence can be, must be, traced back to My loving forethought — all these gradually engender a feeling of wonder, certainty, gratitude, followed in time by Joy.
Joy is of two kinds. The Joy born of Love and Wonder, and the Joy born of Love and Knowledge, and between the experience of the two Joys lie discipline, disappointment, almost disillusion.
But combat these in My Strength, or rather cling blindly, helplessly to Me and let Me combat them, persevere in obeying My Will, accept My discipline, and the second Joy will follow .
And of this second Joy it was that I said, “Your joy no man taketh from you.”
Do not regret the first, the second is the greater gift.
“If ye continue in my word, then are ye
my disciples indeed; And ye
shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make your free.” John 8:31, 32