Overcoming Emotional Chaos Through the Joy of Salvation

Psalms 51:12

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (NIV)

The world is overflowing with chaos—we see it every day. Our emotions swing from joy to anger, from hope to despair, sometimes all within the same moment. We’re surrounded on every side by countless pressures, each one tugging at our hearts in a different direction. There’s a spiritual current designed to keep us this way—enslaved to the turmoil of the moment, trapped on an emotional roller coaster where our hearts rise and fall with the events of the day. Yet God calls us to something better: a steady peace and lasting joy found only in the salvation He gives.

As we finish our look at this week’s passage, David is asking the Lord to restore His joy, but he is a king, a father, a husband, the head of an army under attack. He needs the joy of the Lord.

Without the stability that comes from the joy of the Lord, we are too frazzled, anxious, and distracted to function well. We struggle in our relationships and our responsibilities at work and home. We are too overwhelmed to focus on what needs to be done. Even if we can focus, we don’t have the emotional strength we need to do those things.

The joy of God’s salvation is knowing that He is working all things together for our good. He is not going to leave us in the valleys of life. He will bring us through. And while we are there, He will sustain us. This knowledge—and a strong faith in that knowledge—allows us to remain calm as we wait for the Lord to make His move. We are emotionally stabilized in this joy. It comes with a peace that God is still in control.

Our stability within makes us the stable person others need in their time of crisis. We become better parents, better spouses, better friends. As the Scripture teaches, we become stable like a tree planted by the water. The joy of the Lord empowers and expands our ministry to others.

Prayer: Lord, increase my joy to stabilize me in a chaotic world so I can be more help to others in turmoil. Amem.

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