{"id":4841,"date":"2025-08-26T08:24:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4841"},"modified":"2025-08-26T08:24:56","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:24:56","slug":"en-rejoice-in-the-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/26\/en-rejoice-in-the-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"EN: Rejoice “In” the Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0<\/em>

Last May, a car bomb \u2013 one of the largest that local law enforcement officials said they could remember \u2013 ripped through a quiet Palm Springs neighborhood.

The target was a medical clinic. Four people were injured; all survived. The bomber, identified as 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, died at the scene.

What shook investigators was the audio clip Bartkus had posted on social media shortly before detonating his Ford Fusion. He was glad that he would now be considered \u201cpro-mortalist\u201d \u2013 that is, pro-death. \u201cLet\u2019s make the death thing happen sooner rather than later,\u201d he added.\u00a0\u00a0

The bomber had not targeted an abortion clinic \u2013 that is, a place that assisted in the termination of human life. Instead, he had singled out a fertility clinic \u2013 a facility specifically designed to help bring babies into the world.

It quickly became clear that Guy Bartkus was one of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who profess some degree of allegiance to the \u201canti-natalist\u201d movement \u2013 an ideology that openly declares the immorality of procreation.

Why, they argue, should anyone bring another child into the world?

We live on a despoiled planet. Things are getting worse. Artificial intelligence may soon destroy us all. Newborns will experience some measure of suffering during their lifetimes, not to mention the certainty of death. There is no guarantee any child will grow up to experience happiness.

In 2006, a South African philosopher named David Benatar penned a treatise titled Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence<\/em>. It became an international rallying cry for \u201cefilists\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s E-F-I-L, or \u201clife\u201d spelled backwards \u2013 some of whom have recommended the end of all species and even the destruction of DNA. According to that scenario, life and its tragic consequences will never have to plague the Earth again.

Bartkus\u2019 beliefs weren\u2019t quite so extreme. Nevertheless, he was sympathetic to the idea that birth should be followed as quickly as possible by a consensual death \u2013 a pathway he chose to model last spring.

Not all anti-natalists applauded. The New York Times<\/em> reported that the moderator of an anti-natalism Reddit forum (with nearly a quarter-million members) called the bombing \u201cunjustifiable, incoherent, immoral, and disgusting.\u201d Benatar likewise affirmed that his philosophy abhors violence.

Do the anti-natalists have a point? Is human happiness truly a lost cause in the 21st<\/sup> century?

Social historians are quick to point out that while the world can seem to some people like a failed experiment headed for a sad finale, there has never been a better time to be alive.

Israeli philosopher Yuval Noah Harari notes that the three deadliest scourges in the human story \u2013 war, famine, and disease \u2013 have largely been conquered. Yes, there are still disheartening border wars and hungry children, and a pandemic swept the planet just five years ago. But none of those have been on a history-altering scale.

Do you want to gaze at a world into which it might have seemed heartless or risky to bring children? Take a time machine back to Bible times.

Half of the little ones born into the ancient Mediterranean world didn\u2019t see a fifth birthday. Women had marginal social rights. Hundreds of \u201ccrimes\u201d \u2013 most of which we would nowadays call misdemeanors \u2013 were punishable by death. Average life expectancy at birth was 25 years.

The Roman Empire provided a degree of stability, albeit at the point of a sword. An individual\u2019s existence was not far removed from Thomas Hobbes\u2019 famous 1651 verdict concerning unregulated, ungoverned humanity. The average human life would be \u201csolitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.\u201d

Then there was the apostle Paul.

Paul\u2019s most joyful correspondence, his letter to the Christians at Philippi, was written from a first century prison cell \u2013 not exactly a happy place. Yet you wouldn\u2019t know that by reading the soaring pinnacle of his letter in chapter four, verse four: \u201cRejoice in<\/u><\/strong><\/em> (EN<\/strong>) the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!\u201d\u00a0

What in the world is he talking about?

We have a fairly good what he\u2019s not<\/u><\/em> talking about. Paul isn\u2019t trying to solve the never-ending mystery of human happiness.

Happiness derives from the same root that gives us the word \u201chappen.\u201d Happiness depends on what is happening, or not happening, at a given moment. America\u2019s advertising empires know this well. In 60 seconds or less, TV commercials must deliver two messages: (1) You are not happy. (2) Happiness is just one purchase away.

So get yourself a new truck. Get rid of those age spots. Address your acid reflex. Bet on your favorite sports team. Buy some insurance from a talking gecko.

The problem with happiness is that it doesn\u2019t stick around. This summer McDonald\u2019s reintroduced Adult Happy Meals \u2013 an entr\u00e9e, fries, drink, and a collectible figure (I am not making this up). That might be enough to make me happy today. But what about tomorrow?

Paul urges us to seek something fundamentally different and profoundly better \u2013 God\u2019s gift of being blessed<\/em>.

Being blessed is the God-provided certainty that all is well \u2013 an assurance that is strangely and wonderfully independent of happiness.

Rejoice in<\/u><\/strong><\/em> (EN<\/strong>) the Lord, he says. Quite a lot is riding on that little preposition. \u201cIn\u201d is the enduring condition of trusting God. No matter what happens to be happening, we can experience joy. That\u2019s because if God is really God, and we have abandoned the course of our lives to his care, the world is a perfectly safe place to be.

Happiness, on the other hand, is maddeningly fragile. It\u2019s one flight delay, one sore throat, or one marital argument away from fleeing the scene.

If, on the other hand, you know that you are blessed \u2013 if you know that God favors you with his presence, his grace, and his unchanging love \u2013 then nothing can negate your joy. And it just so happens that the joy of being blessed is what human hearts hunger for more than anything else. \u00a0\u00a0

Is it worth being born into this oh-so-imperfect world?\u00a0

Contrary to the expectations of more than a few church attenders, Jesus did not come to make us happy.

He came to give us something that actually lasts:

It\u2019s L-I-F-E \u2013 Life spelled forwards<\/em>.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0 Last May, a car bomb \u2013 one of the largest that local… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[251,555,473,988],"class_list":["post-4841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-happiness","tag-joy","tag-prepositions","tag-rejoice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4843,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841\/revisions\/4843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}