Radost is the Czech word for joy.
After much deliberation as to what we might title our blog, we finally settled to do the heavily-cliched, yet, at times, very enlightening "foreign-avant garde-neointellectual" route. Consequently, our blog title might be what some call "weird."
Love is maligned everyday: are we really going to say that we "love our pizza," or that "we love Sylvester Stallone" and then twenty minutes later use that same word, love, to talk about our spouse or our children? Shouldn't love mean more? Perhaps there are those who realize that the use of love in common conversation is like a four-letter cuss on the latest rap album, and that, as a people, we might be short-changing its true meaning. But, how many are out there?
We Christians claim to have a real understanding of "loves" deepest meanings, its most tangible manifestations and its apotheosis, but somehow we find ourselves falling short. Offense should be the first emotion that runs through our veins when we Christians hear love cheapened; it needs to be exalted to our languages highest levels__it isn't.
Sorry Love, I would love to make it better for you, but my love is just too fleeting to try.
Much Love,
Jeremy.
Joy is another word that gets backhanded alot.
Do we really understand the true meaning of Joy? I know that Jamie and I struggle to grasp its complexity and depth: don't we feel joyous when we eat a delicious meat loaf that our moms baked? Can't joy be found when we finally find our way on the road after having been lost, for two hours, in an unfamiliar place. I know that I personally feel "joyous" when the Pittsburgh Penguins score a thunderous goal from a slap shot 40 feet from the net. However, we cannot help but wonder whether joy, much like love, is just the tip of the hidden truth. Maybe the words joy and love are sad attempts by humans to describe a spiritual connectedness that can't be proven through rationalism or scientific inquiry. Wouldn't joy and love be boring if we could prove their root?
Love and joy, by the way, are the first two mentioned in the"fruit of the spirit", which gives us an indication of their importance, not only for contemporary thinkers (like us), but for the apostle Paul. The Fruit of the Spirit is the character traits straight from God himself. They are an indication of the emotional and spiritual maturity of man and the proof of the tangible work of God through man. I guess this is what Jesus means when he calls for a Joy so powerful that it makes believers want to shout from the mountain tops and proclaim the Kingdom is coming. In contrast to our worldly definition of joy, the "fruit-of-the-spirit Joy is not shallow. Just as I might think I have experienced true joy by watching the Pens score on a power play, I can just as quickly lose that euphoric feeling if the Philadelphia Flyers were to answer back. Doesn't this kind of joy remind us of fickle human love?
After much deliberation as to what we might title our blog, we finally settled to do the heavily-cliched, yet, at times, very enlightening "foreign-avant garde-neointellectual" route. Consequently, our blog title might be what some call "weird."
Love is maligned everyday: are we really going to say that we "love our pizza," or that "we love Sylvester Stallone" and then twenty minutes later use that same word, love, to talk about our spouse or our children? Shouldn't love mean more? Perhaps there are those who realize that the use of love in common conversation is like a four-letter cuss on the latest rap album, and that, as a people, we might be short-changing its true meaning. But, how many are out there?
We Christians claim to have a real understanding of "loves" deepest meanings, its most tangible manifestations and its apotheosis, but somehow we find ourselves falling short. Offense should be the first emotion that runs through our veins when we Christians hear love cheapened; it needs to be exalted to our languages highest levels__it isn't.
Sorry Love, I would love to make it better for you, but my love is just too fleeting to try.
Much Love,
Jeremy.
Joy is another word that gets backhanded alot.
Do we really understand the true meaning of Joy? I know that Jamie and I struggle to grasp its complexity and depth: don't we feel joyous when we eat a delicious meat loaf that our moms baked? Can't joy be found when we finally find our way on the road after having been lost, for two hours, in an unfamiliar place. I know that I personally feel "joyous" when the Pittsburgh Penguins score a thunderous goal from a slap shot 40 feet from the net. However, we cannot help but wonder whether joy, much like love, is just the tip of the hidden truth. Maybe the words joy and love are sad attempts by humans to describe a spiritual connectedness that can't be proven through rationalism or scientific inquiry. Wouldn't joy and love be boring if we could prove their root?
Love and joy, by the way, are the first two mentioned in the"fruit of the spirit", which gives us an indication of their importance, not only for contemporary thinkers (like us), but for the apostle Paul. The Fruit of the Spirit is the character traits straight from God himself. They are an indication of the emotional and spiritual maturity of man and the proof of the tangible work of God through man. I guess this is what Jesus means when he calls for a Joy so powerful that it makes believers want to shout from the mountain tops and proclaim the Kingdom is coming. In contrast to our worldly definition of joy, the "fruit-of-the-spirit Joy is not shallow. Just as I might think I have experienced true joy by watching the Pens score on a power play, I can just as quickly lose that euphoric feeling if the Philadelphia Flyers were to answer back. Doesn't this kind of joy remind us of fickle human love?
We really should celebrate that the true examples of Joy and love, the most pure, are long lasting. Christ and Joy are forever, even if times get hard. So, in that vein, Jamie and I have started this blog and we have called it Radost. I guess we could have picked any language to showcase as our title, but Czech fits; after all, I assume many are reading this blog to catch up with our lives, as we are living in Policka, Czech Republic. There are going to be days and months where our human joy and our human love for both each other and for the community will be tested and stretched. There will be instances where loneliness and insecurities fill vacuums. There might be whole weeks where Jamie and I feel like we're going to quit; but, we hope that through this blog and through this international community, that Joy and Love, in their deepest and rawest sense will be seen not through our work, but through everyone who is supporting us: from grandparents to teachers, coworkers to parents and from brothers to strangers.
So please, come and join our radost.
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