Like the gifts of Hope and Peace, Joy is a current reality, percolating in us, mightily operational. Unlike those first two, joy is not just powerful. It is loud, jubilant, outwardly expressive, raucous! The mystery is how feeble earthlings, wet mud creatures such as ourselves, can ever keep it contained, under wraps, under the radar. Yet all our lives, these three are carrying us, through all our weakness and failings, determinedly drawing us nearer the heart of the Father. As always, it is God’s Word, through the working of the Spirit, that reveals mysteries, sometimes languidly like the early morning arrival of the sun over the horizon, and sometimes startlingly, like a pre-dawn bugler playing Reveille at our open window. But always as a gift.