Our world, Eeyore, and Piglet

How can we find the joy of the Lord?
We just don't feel joyful right now.
We may feel sad. We might feel fearful, with the current world situation. We may even be depressed.
Happy dancing? Not today.
Let's look back again at the eighth chapter of Nehemiah . . . .

What happened before the people experienced joy?
When we read in verse nine that the people wept, I believe we can assume they were genuine tears of repentance. It says that the people had been weeping as they listened to the reading of the Word of God.
I believe as I read the Bible that there is a balancing act of sorts between mourning over sin and rejoicing in the Lord. When I read in II Corinthians that Paul was at the same time sorrowful and rejoicing:

 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (II Corinthians 6:10)

I think what he was talking about (I'm not a scholar, so if you think I'm off base, you can let me know in the comments!) is that a believer will be convicted of sin and sad that she has slipped out of the sweet fellowship with Christ that she can enjoy. At the same time, she will be able to be content, even joyful, because of the mercy of God that forgives her sin.
As believers, we can and should weep with those who weep in grief, but underneath the sorrow is the solid joy of sins forgiven and the hope of heaven.
Praise God!
Hope that makes sense.
As with so many things, there is a "pendulum swing" where at one end, true repentance goes too far and ends up in a swamp of depression. It's easy to have this happen  --  after all, my sin is what put the sinless Son of God on the cross. I don't dare take it lightly, but I also should not allow it to make me gloomy, pessimistic, and depressed. Taken too far, it can cause me to feel worthless, and the scripture says just the opposite:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)

Since you are precious and honored in my sight,    and because I love you,I will give people in exchange for you,    nations in exchange for your life. (Isaiah 43:4)

To combat those feelings, it may also help to look to verses like Hebrews 10:12 and put our focus on things above where Christ is making intersession for us.
In the world of the unbeliever, sin has gradually carried less of a stigma, and the sense of shame has been slowly replaced by a growing boldness of attitude - almost a flaunting of sin.
And so, at the other end of the pendulum swing are Christians that are casual, even flippant about their sins. They shrug off sin as no big deal and go on their merry way.  "We're under grace!" they say.
Paul words address this specifically:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:1-2)

The proper balance, the sweet spot in the center of the pendulum's swing, is to take our sins seriously and truly repent of them -- and then to put our focus back on Christ and on His grace.

This is a formula that will result in the joy of the Lord! More on our Thousand Acre Wood characters tomorrow . . .