Joy to the World!

December 30, 2023
Devotional by: Allison Pugmire

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy means someone is glad to be with me and I am the sparkle in someone’s eye. When Joy came to the world, He came universally. He also came so very personally. My life’s work is to receive My King. I remember singing “Joy to the world” every year on Christmas Eve, thinking my heart might burst from the glory of it all in that moment. But now I understand that Joy to the world is actually a way to live my life, every day of the year, in all relationships. Joy to the world is no less true on a Tuesday in April than on December 24. He is just as much with me in the ordinary as in the extraordinary. The season of advent is spent trusting, waiting, preparing Him room, not out there somewhere, but right in here. The seasons of my life are much the same. When I accept who He is (everything I need) and who He says I am (everything that He is), I think that is when heaven and nature truly sing. Jesus is always glad to be with us - Joy to the world!!!