Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Romans 12:15
In the span of two hours, they came. Bing-bing, bing-bing.
First, the text: Please pray- my brother was just in a hit and run. Taken by Flight for Life. Might be head injuries and for sure broken bones. Please, just pray. I moan- I can’t help but moan and wince in pain- and pray.
Next, the post: One more pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, was how a cousin’s pregnancy announcement came. No, even at 43, the empty womb hasn’t said, “enough.” Still, I push, Congrats on such a precious gift!
Then: It was one year ago this weekend that we lost our baby. I was only 12 weeks along, but I can’t stop thinking about her. The tears just stream. Instantly, my own eyes water. I can’t help but hug this friend.
Last: I just started at my dream job this week, she said with glee. In fact, the board actually created the position for me. It’s a perfect fit. I swallow hard, My job is not a perfect fit. Especially not this week. Still.
Rejoice with those who rejoice.
Natural or Supernatural?
Is it easy for you? I mean, rejoicing with those who rejoice? Does that empathy come naturally?
For many of us, it’s the weeping part that’s easy. After all, it’s a rare person who is not touched by the sight of someone in distress.
But sharing others’ joy can be hard, especially if their success is right near our wheelhouse- or would-be wheelhouse. I admit: when ugly envy besets me, it suffocates my joy-sharing empathy.
John Piper details several reasons we might not rejoice with those who rejoice. And rock bottom for most of us with this problem is the life-choking weed of pride. Because the self-preoccupied- whether with disappointment and hurt or with a sense of superiority- find it hard to rejoice in another’s success.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains why so many of us find it harder to rejoice with those who rejoice than to weep with those who weep.
Because the one rejoicing has probably had a great success or bit of good fortune. Then this element of competition comes in…. It’s innate within human nature. We want to become high and great and important. It is one of the main things that happened to man after the Fall: he became proud and self-centered…
And so we find it easy to sympathize with people who are not successful. They are not in competition with us. We feel we are in a better position. We’re up and they’re down, so we can afford to weep with them. It’s more or less natural.
Yes, for me the weeping part is natural. It’s the other that’s supernatural.
Rejoice with those who rejoice.
If you can’t feel the joy?
Fake it till you make it might not sound like sage spiritual advice. But I think it might be.
For so much of my own spiritual stretching has been related to those times I’m called not only to do, but to feel a certain way and I can’t seem to feel it- like joy.
At those times, I return to this practical advice from C.S. Lewis, What are [you] to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it. The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did.
Rejoicing doesn’t always feel like 100% authentic Abigail. Rejoicing with those who rejoice can feel like pretending. The joyful kind of empathic love doesn’t always come naturally. We know that the natural is opposed to the spiritual, that the flesh and the spirit conflict.
So no matter if sharing the joy doesn’t feel natural. God’s rule is simple: Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. Don’t waste time worrying if you feel the joy. Do not worry if it feels artificial to smile and say about–his huge new house, or her wedding gown or his all-star son- That’s great!
Saying it might feel fake. But that’s okay.
Rejoice with those who rejoice.
A Very Fine Nature
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success. What Oscar Wilde- a paragon, by the way, of a natural, self-preoccupied life- called a “very fine nature,” I call a “new creation.”
You’re absolutely right: No one can ever do this for himself. No natural man cannot do this. Only the new creation can. It’s only as we work out while the Spirit works in that we can genuinely share the joy.
It’s only by grace through faith in Christ that I’m able to set aside my hurt and disappointment and pride so I can rejoice with those who are rejoice in things that aren’t mine.
Or are they? Can others’ joys be mine?
Martyn Lloyd-Jones again,
One trademark of our faith is that we are members of the same family and the same body. Nothing can happen to them unless it happens to you. When one member suffers, all the other members suffer with it [1 Cor. 12:26]. Whatever happens to the other is really happening to you. The body cannot be divided into segments that are not connected. No, no- the body is one and organic and whole. An infection in the little toe can soon cause a headache.
When we show the joy, we might be surprised to find our friends’ joy really does become ours.
But who ever said anything about the Christian life being easy? Who ever guaranteed no growing pains?
Not the Apostle Paul. No, I worked harder than all of them–yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me (1 Cor. 15:10). In fact, I’ve heard it said, that there is not more thorough test of our profession of the Christian faith than just this, that we:
Rejoice with those who rejoice.
Joy Comes
Back to bing-bing #4. Remember that conversation with the friend who just landed that highly-satisfying, custom-fit job? I smiled, leaned in and asked,
So can you show me some of your work?
She did. She took me to an amazing website she’d built. And it was. It was a perfect fit for her passion and skill.
Then by some miracle of grace, it came. Genuine joy- the feeling not just the showing- welled up in me and I really did,
Rejoice with those who rejoice.