Random Joy

Psalm 63

Where do you find joy? I remember when my boys were young that as we settled down in the evening, one of them would often seem to exclaim, “This was the best day ever!” I know there were joys they had found in their days that I had probably missed. Maybe it was the chance to skip a stone in the river or watch the white cardinal that frequented our bird feeder.

Watching children find joy is an amazing joy itself. I love to see the world through the eyes of a little person. Where do you find joy? When was the last time you felt totally joyous? When was the last time beauty stopped you in your tracks? When was the last time you felt delight pouring through your being?

There are days when I feel so in need — daily turning to God with a prayer list that grows longer. I know too many people who are hurting. We see people divided over trivial issues. Our hearts get broken. We feel afraid.

The psalmist prays for a place of need, asking God for protection. And, when I calmly look back over events in my life, I know that from a place of great need we are sometimes more attentive to God’s presence in our lives. He knows that without Him in our lives, nothing truly makes sense. It is only with God abiding with us that we can feel happy from the inside out. We can find joy in many, many places. He takes our hand and puts our feet on the path of righteousness. We know that we are on the right path when God is our companion. Many of us know that there is no greater treasure than a personal relationship with the Lord.

And yet…what goes through our minds when we hear news which seems like an endless litany of violence, addiction, corruption, disease? Or how about our own lives when they seem to spring leaks and we lie awake in the night in fear or despair? That is when we have to remember that God’s power controls, but it also redeems. It is the power that raises the dead, including those who are destroying themselves. For all of us, we vacillate: we have faith, we lose faith, we find faith again or it finds us. Throughout each day we must cling to the truth that we are in God’s hands. Love girds the universe, and God will have the last word.

I have always loved watching birds. There are days when I sit watching them and imagine that the tiny brown bird with the sweet song might be an angel God sent to rouse me from my self-absorption. Every moment of our lives allows us the choice of how we perceive it—a blind accident of time or a disclosure of our present and compassionate God. It might be that we need to assign holy moments to things that others call random. While things of the world might deliver more instant rewards, we know that faith and our relationship with the Lord has its seeds planted much deeper down. It might have to grow a long time in the dark before anything begins to show on the surface. But joy will be the crop.

Day by day we are given what we need. Perhaps it is not always what we want. It is not something we can grow all by ourselves and we cannot stockpile it for our own use. Sometimes it is a feast, and there are times when it is merely crumbs, but it is always enough to sustain us because it comes from the hand of God. God looks at us and He always sees the best: His beloved children, partners in His on-going creation. We know we can trust God’s vision of us more than we can trust our own.

In the voice of a child, the words of a song, ice cream to finish off the day, or a fiery sunset, joy stretches and slows time just enough for us to know that God is with us every moment. What can be better than that? We don’t have to look any further to find our joy.