Shining Our Light For All To See

Find Joy, Day 60
The Beautiful Road Map

I have a picture in my mind. I am a teenager, walking along a white sand beach in Hawaii, hand in hand with my father. He and my mom scrimped, saved, and used frequent flyer miles to fly themselves, me, and my brother to Hawaii for Christmas.

Nothing could prepare me for what I saw as we traveled around the area where we were staying. I had seen pictures and videos. I had read guidebooks and imagined it in my mind. But until I experienced the deep blue ocean and towering green mountains firsthand, I could not comprehend how beautiful it was. I was filled with awe. I could finally understand what everyone had been trying to explain.

Here’s the thing: Joy is like that, too. The Bible is our road map and guide to a depth of beauty in our relationship with God that is almost inexplicable. Many verses act as signposts to finding that joy. And when we experience such a joy even when it “shouldn’t” be there, in the face of sorrow or uncertainty, there is simply nothing like it. It is a mystery — and a true gift from God.

It also points us to another mystery, one that we can only imagine in our minds: the glory of heaven.

God calls us to pursue and find joy here, but this world is not our home. Here, our joy will inevitably be shadowed. But in eternity, in the presence of God, there will be no shadows. There will be none of the pain and loss that stalks our world (Revelation 21:4). Think of it: we will join in the worship of Jesus with the same angels who declared the “good news of great joy” two thousand years ago!

That should be our ultimate source of true joy. We will see Him face-to-face.

We are called to press into our relationship with Him here, even as we long for the day when there is nothing between us.

That is where my sweet dad is now. After a devastating stroke and a multi-year battle, he is walking with Jesus. It makes me ache with joy to think of what he is experiencing. It also makes me ache with joy to think that someday, I’ll be able to walk hand in hand
with my dad again. That is the true joy that God has for all of us who follow Jesus.