Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope

Shana: I’m Shana with Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Thank you for joining us.

Joni Eareckson Tada: Some time ago an out-of-town visitor came with his family to Joni and Friends. When I learned that his daughter, Tracy, was struggling with chronic pain, I invited the family to my office and we enjoyed a good long talk together and a tour of my art studio. Somewhere during the visit, Tracy, who looked to be about 18 years old, asked about my pain levels. I was quite frank with her and answered that even right then I was in great pain. Then she said, “But I don’t understand. I don’t get how you can be in great pain yet you seem full of joy.”

I was quiet for a minute, smiling softly at this precious girl, and I thought, “Oh dear Tracy, it would require earnest faith on your part to believe me, but let me give it a try.” And this is what I told her. I said, “Tracy, we all want to know Jesus, right? We want to know who He is. We want to know His heart, His mercy, and His love. Although we can learn these lessons about Jesus in the Gospels, raising Jairus’ daughter, how His heart was moved by the woman caught in adultery, and His mercy to Peter after the big betrayal, all this helps us know Christ.

But if we want to know Him intimately and sweetly, you have to start with Philippians chapter three: ‘I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.’” That death occurred on the cross. Right then He fully and gloriously displayed His love like nowhere else in the Gospels. So if we want to know His heart, on the cross His heart bled for sinners. If we want to know His mercy, then look at the cross. It is there we see the high point of His mercy.

On the cross, Jesus displayed Himself like nowhere else in the Bible. So if we want to know Jesus and possess His life-sustaining joy, it will mean sharing in His sufferings. No one is naturally inclined to want that, but chronic pain and a lifetime of disability push us both down that hard road to the cross. There we sit, gazing at His beauty, His mercy, and His incomprehensible love. I experience that wonderful, terrible blend of joy and sorrow described in Second Corinthians six. Even now, in my most happy moments, there is always a tinge of pain and sorrow that whispers, “Joni, be grateful. This delightful moment was blood-bought for you by your Savior.”

I would never wish that hard but precious joy away. It’s an affirmation of my own union with Christ, a kind of litmus test, and it tells me that the joy I’m experiencing isn't frivolous. It’s profound evidence that I have come to know Christ, that I’m experiencing the joy that sustained Him in His agony. I said to Tracy, “Sweetheart, I hardly ever experience physical comfort, but I do experience the unshakable joy of my Jesus within His fellowship of suffering. It’s a privilege to receive just a tiny measure of the robust joy that carried our Lord through His cross and into the presence of our Father.”

The secret to unshakable joy, Tracy, is to embrace the truth that God shares His joy on His terms, and those terms call for you and me to suffer in some measure as did His dear Son. Believe me, it’s worth it. That precious 18-year-old embraced what I shared. So friend, if you know someone who is suffering through a hard trial, share this program on social media. Just go to joniradio.org if you want to text or email today’s program to a hurting friend.