I returned over the weekend from a three-day national conference of the Assemblies of God in Great Britain. It was such an exciting and blessed time in the presence of the Lord.

Prior to attending this conference, I was not in a good place emotionally. My family had gone through back-to-back losses in the last couple of months and quite recently, a business relationship came to an abrupt end. As if that were not enough, I got discouraged by some things that happened in church, things that were not necessarily bad in themselves but which impacted me personally.

I had all of these weighing on me as I drove the couple of hours to the conference. As I entered the auditorium on the first day, I began to feel the stirrings of joy and sensed that something was shifting. As the evening session began, the band started on an upbeat song that would become the theme song for the conference. The chorus went like this:

I've got joy in the morning,
Joy in the evening,
You keep me dancing in every season,
Whatever comes tomorrow, I've got joy!

I looked around and saw fellow ministers and leaders jumping up, dancing, singing and rejoicing and before long, I was doing the same. Forgotten were the things that had been weighing so heavily on my heart. Even long after the service ended, I could hear that song playing on repeat in my heart. It struck me then and there. We were all rejoicing, not because we had no cares in the world, or because the problems we had carried into that meeting had suddenly evaporated. We were rejoicing because joy is not something you produce; it is something you experience when you are in the presence of the Lord.

In Scripture, when Nehemiah and Ezra gathered all the people at the Water Gate and read the Law of Moses aloud from morning till noon, we read in Nehemiah 8:10: "Nehemiah said, 'Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.'" The people were grieving because they had realised how much they had lost as a result of their disobedience to God's law. The natural response was to feel sad and to wallow in self-regret, but Nehemiah redirected them to rejoice in the Lord instead.

Sin and disobedience are not the only reasons we sometimes lose our connection with joy. Circumstances like those my family and I have faced in recent months have the potential to magnify grief and sever that connection. One of the things I came to understand while preparing this article is that our strength is grounded not merely in how we feel about God on any given day, but in the unchanging delight He takes in us in Christ.

The Apostle Paul knew what it meant to suffer and face deeply uncomfortable circumstances, yet he encouraged believers with remarkable boldness: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice" (Philippians 4:4). Paul was not telling people to pretend their problems did not exist. Rather, he was encouraging them, and us, to rejoice in spite of those difficult circumstances. This is because joy is not an emotion; it is an inner confidence in who God is and what He can do. Paul was well qualified to give that command because he had practised it himself.

I went into that conference with a heavy heart and came back rejoicing. What changed? The posture of my heart changed. The situation I left behind is still there. The grief and the sense of loss are still there. But the orientation of my heart has shifted from a place of despair to a place of hope and trust in God.

If your heart is heavy right now, I want to encourage you. God sees you. He knows what you are going through, and He has set in motion everything you need, not just to survive, but to come through the other side in victory.

Let me leave you with the words of Jesus: "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)