Go to Joy

This morning I’m listening to worship songs on Pandora for the first time in weeks. These songs used to be a significant source of private encouragement. “I will stand my ground where hope can be found,” used to be my battle cry (from “O’Lord,” by Lauren Daigle). These songs pull me back to an earlier phase of my educational journey, when I was transfixed by the wonders of translating the text of the Bible in its ancient languages. Then the great crystal sea of God’s Word rose in my horizon like a shore that had been waiting for me, but which I did not know was there until I arrived. I dived in and lost myself for five years.

Who says that there is no glory in this life? Scripture is a glory, a sea full of holy life. God gave me a small bowl in which I could carry a little portion, and from which I could share this life with my friends. Like fine heirloom silver, I treasured this life in the text, in spite of uncertainty in our future, the burdens of taxing requirements for my degree, interpersonal conflicts, health problems, and grief over private losses. Joy in the text rode on top of these troubles like a slim, diaphanous sailboat which could not go down. Buoyant and swift, it led me forward into greater light, into national conferences, and eventually to this place. Such was my life, my true and transcendent life, in a land of summer.

What I realize now is that the earthly problems continued to be problems until we moved. But the joy of the text remained in spite of the problems. That joy has transformed me. I no longer recognize myself. I have experienced so much change that I do not know where I am going next. Nothing prepared me for this great love and cataclysmic upheaval which has leveled everything else I thought was part of my life. Past things are gone. Memory is the gift they left behind. Yet I am more fully alive than I have ever been, alive to a new life that I could not have envisioned five years ago.   

From these experiences, I have learned that  trials and anxieties are a constant, shifting presence in our world, but genuine joy in the Lord cannot be taken away. Earthly life is a strange endeavor, and there are many unexpected developments. In a fallen world, we make investments without knowing which ones will produce permanent benefits. But God’s joy remains.

In addition to all of this, I'm amazed at how a new, rich earthly life has emerged in the midst of pursuing heavenly joy. Here I find beauty and meaning, health and strength, love and laughter, all bubbling up around me. I left everything behind, yet I have everything I need. This is not for me alone. Ministry pours out spontaneously wherever I am. As C. S. Lewis wisely wrote in Mere Christianity:

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are likely to get health, provided you want other things more--food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.

From this vantage point, I urge every friend to pursue the greatest, deepest joy that points toward God and his work. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt 6:21). And I would add to his words, when your heart has found true lasting treasure, you will change the world.