Walking Around Glory

In the Soul Room this past week you may have noticed that in Psalm 81:1-4 there is a command to rejoice. Not an invitation to rejoice but a decree, an ordinance of God! How can this be? Can you really tell people to rejoice? To have joy? Well, according to the Bible, it seems God can and does command us to rejoice. I don’t know about you but a lot of the time I am just caught up in the cultural liturgy of consumerism or business—which are antithetical to an attitude of deep joy. So, what can this mean for us if, as C. S. Lewis says, “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.” I suppose most of my life I have sought to understand this, and it seems to me that gratitude, thankfulness, and joy are key indicators of a healthy life with God. So, can these things be taught? I mean, is it possible to “will” joy and thanksgiving into our lives? Most of us are all too well acquainted with working jobs we don’t like, feeling the pressure of suburbia to keep up, hemmed-in with meeting after meeting, stuck in the rat race of work, kids’ activities, and chores at home that leave you exhausted, frustrated, and riddled with anxiety. How, pray tell, can joy be a command in the “vale of tears” we call life?I think what God gives us toward this end of a life of thankfulness, gratitude, and joy are things that can and do awaken our hearts to actually see his grace around us. Then, when our hearts are ensnared or captured by the sheer grace and grandeur of God, the reflex action is to rejoice. We must develop habits in our lives that cultivate gratitude and joy. We have to establish rhythms and allow space for joy to bubble up and find expression in our lives. If we don’t, how can we ever actually “love life”? Now again, if we are praying that God’s “will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are already indirectly praying for joy, whether we realize it or not. So, I suppose the question is, how do I cultivate a life where, if I am not experiencing joy, I am at least not passive in the process? If I am just a victim of circumstances, I will only find joy and thankfulness when the circumstances of life fall out in a favorable manner, which it seems to me is what most of humanity does. If everything is trouble-free, then I will have the luxury of joy and gratitude. It really doesn’t take any grace to achieve that; everyone is happy when things are good, but what about when things are bad? What must we do to say, as Habakkuk says,Though the fig tree should not blossom,nor fruit be on the vines,       the produce of the olive failand the fields yield no food,       the flock be cut off from the foldand there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord;I will take joy in the God of my salvation?                         (Habakkuk 3:17-18)Here the prophet is envisioning the worst that life can offer. It is a worse lot than any of us have experienced in our own lives, and yet he says, “I will have joy; I will be thankful to God.” How do we get there? I do hope you are asking that question, instead of saying, “That is just not possible, you don’t know what my life is like.” See, one attitude of the heart is to be filled with enough humility to have the Scriptures call you into question; the other is to be closed to even being questioned by the Scriptures, and I suppose for those there is little hope. But if you are saying, how do I get to this place, where I take God’s ordinance of a joyful life seriously, then for you, “the gates of paradise may just open up!”As I ponder this question, I realize that when I had six small children in our home, (and now we have one), Teri and I were always thinking about this very question. It was the core curriculum of our home, “How do we cultivate a life of joy, gratitude, and thankfulness in our children.” The key word there is cultivate. In other words, how do we teach our children habits of the heart that give them the ability to see the world as filled with wonder and glory? How do we teach them that everything they have and every gifting from God is a gift both to be shared and given back to God with praise and thanksgiving? So, of course, joy is an ordinance of God!Now, when I talk about joy, I don’t mean we are happy all the time. If the crop fails, there are obviously tears. Joy and tears can happen at the same time, and in fact they often do. Jesus was always weeping, and yet he remains the man of joy, being invited to every party. Still, we must ask ourselves, how do we cultivate, how do we form habits that move us toward this serious business of heaven? I think, for me, the habit of seeing God in the “stuff” is the most helpful thing. Isaiah said, “The whole world is full of God’s glory.” Well, I want not only to see it but to participate in it. Jesus often told people to look at flowers and birds to get an understanding of his glory. As Lewis says, “Follow the sunbeam to the sun.” I call this “walking around glory.” There is more glory around you than you can imagine, if you just have eyes to see. I think many of us are like the walking dead. The glory is playing around us in trees, birds, music, people, food, and seasonal changes, and we just act as if it is all ho-hum. And God is saying, “Wake up and join the dance!” “Look!”Having eyes to see is only possible if one’s soul is already alive to God on a daily and weekly basis, seeing God in scripture, worship and community. So how is your soul? Do you hear the music? Are you in the great dance or just marking time?