The joy of the Lord is our strength…but what about those days, those seasons where it feels like joy is an elusive idea rather than a feeling we can attain? To wear a garment of joy and thankfulness can be so hard sometimes. But, it is not our own joy, it is the Joy of the Lord inside of us that is our strength. Joy is a divinely powerful weapon for the destruction of strongholds. Habakkuk 3:17-19 talks about how we can rejoice in the Lord even in midst of extreme suffering.
Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation!
The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!
We can always rejoice in God for our salvation. We can always worship Him for His blood that He shed. Jesus gave EVERYTHING up to purchase us for Himself. He literally crucified it all, his life, his breathe and with his own blood he paid for us so we could be rescued by Him….so even if everything else is taken from us, we will always have Him as our inheritance, the one that sacrificed it all because of His radical love.
So even if you are crying and even if it doesn’t feel like a happy song we can still raise our hallelujah. We can still praise Him who is surrounded by a rainbow upon His throne in heaven.
And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. Revelation 4:3
I like to think about how a rainbow is formed through the droplets of rain in the atmosphere…it takes moisture, it takes water in the air to make a rainbow. God’s word says that those of us that are vessels of the Holy Spirit are lights in the darkness…When our circumstances or our seasons makes us shed tears, if we raise our hallelujah in spite of it all – even if that hallelujah sounds more like a pitiful croak or whimper – if we choose to praise Him simply because He IS, then that light shines brighter and brighter through those tears and maybe, just maybe a rainbow begins to form in the spirit realm, a rainbow of His joy can rise up and out of the storm of our sobbing and tears. We can be lifted up and out through a rainbow of our praise.
Let’s worship Him together, in the midst of our storms let’s praise Him. Let’s make a rainbow of praise as we declare that His banner of victory is Love, even if we can’t see it, even if we can’t feel it we can sing it, we can declare it in the name of Jesus.
Hallelujah. 
Proclaim His Whisper 