Joy is at the very heart of WHO God is! Joy is a fruit of God’s Spirit and it is part and parcel of God’s nature. And because joy is at the heart of who God is, then it should be at the heart of who we are as well.
In his wonderful little book called ‘Orthodoxy,’ G.K. Chesterton writes about how the joy that one sees in a little child is just a fraction of the joy that exists in the heart of God:
“Because children have a bounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again.’ And the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead, for grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again!’ to the sun, and every evening, ‘Do it again!’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike. It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we.’
Isn’t that an incredible thought? We have sinned and grown old, jaded, tired, worried and irritated, rushed and blind; we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we!
We see this rather wonderfully throughout the story of Creation. Day 1 - God creates and then pronounces, ‘It is good!’ Day 2 – God creates and then pronounces, ‘It is good!’ Day 3 – God creates and then pronounces, ‘It is good!’ And so it has gone every day from that day until this one. It is good!
That is how it is with God … but not with us: For we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we are.
Joy is more than happiness because joy celebrates ALL of life. God did this in Jesus by sharing in both our laughter and our tears. Jesus laughed out loud with lepers being healed and he wept alongside grieving families.
Remember what Jesus once said to his disciples as he prepared them for the day he would leave them. ‘I have given you all my teachings so that MY joy might be in you, and that your joy might be complete, it might be filled up to the brim!’
God is a God of incredible joy and so the source for all life’s joy is God himself. Don’t spend your life pursuing happiness, don’t even pursue joy, instead pursue the God who is the source of all these things and more!
We come to God because none of us has it within ourselves, except momentarily, to be joyous. Joy is not us concentrating so hard on being positive that beads of sweat pop out on our foreheads! As Eugene Peterson reminds us, joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence! We don’t have to be joyful in order to follow Jesus; it’s what gradually happens within us when we do follow Jesus.
Joy is God’s dancing ’it-is-good and lets-do-it-again’, nature being lived out in us.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord you are the source of all life and all joy. Joy is something that you form within us as we faithfully follow you and obey your commandments. We pray that your joy would indeed be within us so that our joy might be filled to overflowing. In Jesus name. Amen.
FOCUS
John 15:9-11 (NIV)
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
