If you wait at wisdom’s doorway,
longing to hear a word for every day,
joy will break forth within you as you listen for what I’ll say.
For the fountain of life pours into you every time that you find me,
and this is the secret of growing in the delight
and the favor of the Lord.
(Proverbs 8: 34,35 TPT)
Let the sunrise of your love end our dark night.
Break through our clouded dawn again!
Only you can satisfy our hearts,
filling us with songs of joy to the end of our days.
(Psalm 90:14 TPT)
Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
~ Henri Nouwen
So it is when I declare something.
My word will go out and not return to Me empty,
But it will do what I wanted;
it will accomplish what I determined.
For you will go out in joy, be led home in peace.
And as you go the land itself will break out in cheers;
The mountains and the hills will erupt in song,
and the trees of the field will clap their hands.
(Isaiah 55:11,12 The Voice)
But let them all be glad,
those who turn aside to hide themselves in you.
May they keep shouting for joy forever!
Overshadow them in your presence as they sing and rejoice.
Then every lover of your name will burst forth with endless joy.
(Psalm 5:11 TPT)
The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
~ Henri Nouwen
“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” ~Heraclitus
I nestle into a warm form-fitting spot on a colourful beach towel and watch the children. This boy has a plan. He has a vision. He digs. He moves the earth, forming mounds and channels with shovels and pails and his own bare hands. Towers grow on foundations he creates. Monuments to industriousness spring up where only impressions of bare feet dented the wet sand before he arrived. He pats towers into temporary permanence.
No one tells him what to do. When he finished throwing stones into the water, a ritual all boys must follow, he picked up his tools and got to work, as oblivious to the calls of his siblings as he is to the seagulls.
They both steal his potato chips. It doesn’t matter. He is creating. He creates because he was made to create. It’s who he is. He builds because he must build. It’s who he is becoming.
The Creator made him in His image. He carries the Creator’s purpose somewhere deep inside. He is a child of God and must be about his Father’s business. His play is his work.
I watch and remember the Spirit of Wisdom saying:
I was there, close to the Creator’s side as his master artist.
Daily he was filled with delight in me
as I playfully rejoiced before him.
I laughed and played,
so happy with what he had made,
while finding my delight in the children of men.
(Proverbs 8:30,31 TPT)
It is the nature of the Godhead to laugh, to play, to find delight in each other, to find delight in their creation.
I can see the source of their joy in this boy, on this beach, on this day.
I watch the children play on the beach under the warm summer sun. Cool water laps against the division of water and land. The afternoon breeze skims over the lake and rises to play with trembling aspen leaves and sing through fir tree branches. Ospreys soar in a blue sky too full of light to see with unshaded eyes.
The boy straightens up and stands like Colossus with sand-covered legs astride the harbour. His hands, like mighty David’s hands, still hold pail and shovel, his weapons of praise at rest.
“Look what I made!”
He smiles. He is proud. He knows.
I feel God’s pleasure.
Joy.
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of rules about food and drink,
but is in the realm of the Holy Spirit,
filled with righteousness,
peace,
and joy.
(Romans 14:17 TPT)
Charis: Subject to Change 