What are You Full of?

As C.S. Lewis wrote, “We have learned that joy is more than a sense of the comic, more than earthly pleasure, and to a believer even more than what we call happiness. Joy is the enjoyment of God and the good things that come from the hand of God. If our new freedom in Christ is a piece of angel food cake, joy is the frosting. If the Bible gives us the wonderful words of life, joy supplies the music. If the way to heaven turns out to be an arduous steep climb, joy sets up the chair life.”

Joy is a product of abundance, God’s provision. It’s the overflow of vitality. God is your strength. Joy is life working in harmony with God, in step with God. It’s elation drawn from the divine energy of the Holy Spirit. Inadequate as we are, none of us can manage that for long on our own. We try to get it through entertainment. We pay someone to tell jokes or stories or sing songs. We buy the vitality of another person's imagination to divert and enliven our hum-drum lives. As Eugene Peterson wrote,

“The enormous entertainment industry in America is a sign of the depletion of joy in our culture. Society is a bored, gluttonous king employing a court jester to divert it after an overindulgent meal. But that kind of joy never penetrates our lives, never changes our basic constitution. The effects are extremely temporary — a few minutes, a few hours, a few days at most. When we run out of money, the joy trickles away. We cannot make ourselves joyful. Joy cannot be commanded, purchased or arranged.”

But there is something we can do. We can decide to walk with Jesus, close to Jesus, connected to Jesus. We can decide to enjoy God for himself as well as the good things that come from God’s hand. We can lift our voices and sing his praise, like Paul and Silas did in prison, in the best of times, in the worst of times. When you lift your voice in worship, you’re not just practicing his presence, you’re practicing joy, entering into joy, responding to his delight over you. It’s on-the-job-training for the wedding feast to come. Joy is the fruit of a life lived in close communion with God. He, alone, is the true source of joy. You can’t choose joy if you don’t have joy. Do you have the joy of the Lord? Are you close enough for his joy to rub off on you? Or, to put it another way, God is full of joy. Jesus is full of joy. What you are full of? Seriously, what are you full of? Would people say you’re a person of joy, marked by joy? Joy is available to you. The joy of the Lord can be your strength when you have no strength, but you have to draw near to him. One last thing.

His joy is attractive

It draws people in because it’s the one thing they do not have. Celebration belongs to God’s Kingdom. God not only offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing, he wants to lift up these gifts as a source of joy. In all three of the parables Jesus tells to explain why he eats with sinners, God rejoices and invites others to rejoice with him. “Rejoice with me,” the shepherd says. “I have found my sheep that was lost.” “Rejoice with me,” the woman says. “I have found the coin that was lost.” “Rejoice with me,” the father says. “This son of mine was lost and is found.” All of these voices are the voice of God. God doesn’t want to keep his joy to himself. He wants everyone to share it!

God’s joy is the joy of the angels and his saints; it’s the joy of all who belong to the King. God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, not because thousands of people have been saved and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found. This is the joy he invites us into. It’s God’s joy, not the joy the world offers. It’s the joy of a father seeing a child come home. It’s hidden joy, often overlooked, but the thing our hearts long for.

As Henri Nouwen wrote, “I am not accustomed to rejoicing in things that are small, hidden, and scarcely noticed by the people around me. I am generally ready to receive bad news, to read about wars, violence, and crimes, and to witness conflict and disarray. I always expect my visitors to talk about their problems and pain, their setbacks and disappointments, their depressions and their anguish. Somehow I have become accustomed to living with sadness, and so have lost the eyes to see the joy and the ears to hear the gladness that belongs to God and which is to be found in the hidden corners of the world.”

Have you lost the eyes to see the joy that could be yours? Have you lost the ears to hear the gladness that belongs to God? Draw nearer, my friends, draw nearer. Move toward him, not away from him — always, always, always. Don’t wait for a crisis. The joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy of the Lord is yours, if you’ll draw near to him.