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The people of the early church faced terrifying persecution and pain. Their reputations, jobs, and even their very lives were often at risk because of who they followed. And yet, joy is an irrepressible theme throughout the New Testament. We read about individual people and entire communities who have a joy that can’t be snuffed out. But how can this be? With all of the hardship they had to face, shouldn’t joy have been driven out of them?

Maybe it should have. But it wasn’t. And I think that the early church’s indestructible joy had something to do with the fact that they never forgot that in the end, the groom gets the bride.

I was at a wedding not too long ago when, let’s just say, things didn’t go as planned. The attendants didn’t walk down in the order they had rehearsed. When the ushers tried to roll out the aisle runner it got stuck - took forever - and nearly tore in two. They stumbled through their vows. The unity candle didn’t light. And yet, as the ceremony ended there was an irresistable and indestructible joy present. How could this be? Well, at the end of the day, the groom got the bride and the bride got the groom.

The book of Revelation gives us a picture of how things will be at the end of time:

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

Heaven’s groom gets the bride.

Are you lacking joy in your life? Then begin to discipline your mind (read Romans 12:1-2) to view life from a biblical perspective. Yes, in this life there is pain and hardship. Yes, there is loss and suffering. But this is not how things will always be. The groom gets the bride. There is a day coming when we will “see the wedding of which the greatest weddings on this earth have only been a dim forshadowing. Then God will dance with his people. Then joy will reign undiminished and uniterrupted (Ortberg)”

You can have joy now because of the joy to come. But you must discipline your mind. Begin today.