"......the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10b, KJV).
At a London train station one day, a woman was stopped by an elderly man.
"Excuse me, ma'am," he said, "but I want to thank you for something."
"Thank me!" the woman exclaimed.
"Yes'm, I used to be the ticket collector, and whenever you went by you always gave me a cheerful smile and a 'good mornin'." You don't know what a difference it made to me.
"Wet weather or dry, it was always the same, and I thought to myself, "Wonder where she gets her smile from; one can't always be happy, yet she seems to.' I knew that smile must come from inside somehow."
"Then one morning you came by and you had a little Bible in your hand. I said to myself, 'Perhaps that's where she gets her smile from.' So on my way home that night I bought a Bible, and I've been reading it, and I've found Christ. Now I can smile, too, and I want to thank you."
As you and I seek to be God's witnesses today, in dependence on the supernatural power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we should be mindful constantly of the fact that the joy of the Lord can indeed be our strength. That joy inevitably will shine on our faces, regardless of circumstances.
In the words of an anonymous poem:
If you live close to God
And His infinite grace, You don't have to tell; It shows on your face.
Today's Action Point
I will make a conscious effort to reflect the joy of my indwelling Lord in such a way that it will glow on my very countenance. While it is true that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, it is also true that the reflection of that joy is my responsibility. But I will go a step further. I will tell everyone who will listen about the one who is the source of my joy.
