“Rejoice in hope…rejoice with those who rejoice.

Weep with those who weep. Romans 12:12,15

It easy to find ways to love people when their lives are desperate, but how do you love people when their lives are going along pretty well? A good place to start is to pay attention to them.

When you care for people, you join them in what they are experiencing. If they are happy because their child is doing well in school, you join them in their happiness. If they are worried because their child is acting sullen and alienated, you join them in their worry. You rejoice with those who rejoice, and you weep with those who weep.

We need this counsel because sometimes we seem instinctively to do the opposite. When an acquaintance seems to be unusually happy, we remind her that life is serious and a lot of people in our world are suffering. When a family member seems to be unusually sad, we urge him to cheer up and rejoice in the Lord. These are not loving actions.

We have to be careful about this counsel. We shouldn’t rejoice with the criminal who is happy that he is getting away with selling drugs to kids, and we shouldn’t weep with the senior adult who is experiencing clinical depression but won’t see a doctor or take medicine. We rejoice with those who are rejoicing appropriately and weep with those who are weeping appropriately.

God does this, I think. It’s pretty easy to think of God as sharing in our sadness. It’s a little trickier to think of God as sharing in our happiness. But God does rejoice with us. God is interested in happiness.

In fact, God’s intention is that in the end the happiness will be the whole story. Jesus said he will judge all the nations. We know he will do it right. He will fix the mess. In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. As we do it, we can live with the hope that in the end Jesus will fix things. And we rejoice in this hope. We refuse to settle for too little. We hope for it all. It’s going to be all right, thank God.

-Fisher Humphreys