Advent Devotional 2022
The Sounding Joy
An Advent Devotional
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music… Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…
let them sing before the Lord… ~ Excerpts from Psalm 98
Psalm 98 was the inspiration for Isaac Watts, an English Christian minister, when he penned a poem entitled “Joy to the World” in 1719. Almost a century later, in 1848, composer Lowell Mason found the poem and put it to the music that we are most familiar with today.
The second stanza goes like this:
Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.
Since the dawn of creation, the earth has not stopped praising the Lord God.
Indeed, the earth constantly “repeats the sounding joy”! The rocks cry out. The hills and valleys are alive in him. “The rivers clap their hands”. (Ps 98)
Likewise, we are called to “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, ‘Rejoice’!” (Philippians 4:4). We are called to rejoice… and then, rejoice again! You could say, we are called to “repeat the sounding joy” daily.
How are you, each day, “sounding joy” for Him? How are you praising His Name? Perhaps you “sound joy” by caring for someone in your home, seeking integrity in your business, practicing patience with your children, intentionally reading the Word of God each morning, working “as to the Lord” as you wash the dishes and do the laundry… All of these are ways to repeatedly praise the Lord God each and every day.
This devotional is filled with testimonies of how our people have witnessed the joy of the Lord in their own lives; and, their writings are meant to “repeat the sounding joy” each time they are read. May you find life in these words, and in the Spirit with which they were written. Let the season of Advent begin!
With Utmost Joy, Danielle Walker