Three chapters into this book it is still as fresh and enlightening as the first page. I love a book that presents something new in each section while still being able to tie it together or at least build on previous thematic material. Nearly two months into this blog, and I do not regret a single moment spent on it. Even if no one reads a post, I obtain such a wealth of wisdom and understanding that I sometimes find myself writing far more than anyone would reasonable desire to read, and yet it still feels worthwhile.
Chapter 1 touched on the true message of Jesus, the one that pulpits everywhere ignore or downplay. Chapter 2 discussed the various means by which the gospel is misspoken. Chapter 3 starts breaking ground for construction of the gospel Christ spoke of and believed. It begins by re-visioning God.
Jesus' good news about the kingdom can be an effective guide for our lives only if we share his view of the world in which we live. To his eyes this is a God-bathed and God-permeated world. It is a world filled with a glorious reality, where every component is within the range of God's direct knowledge and control.
Great, I'm tracking so far. We need to believe in God in order to effectively believe in the message Jesus gave. God's in control, he made the world, and he's everywhere in it. That much I've always been told. But wait, there's more.
It is a world that is inconceivably beautiful and good because God is always in it. It is a world in which God is continually at play and over which he constantly rejoices. Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not yet fully seized us.
Say that again? Until we have found EVERY visible thing and event glorious with God's presence, Jesus' words have not yet fully seized us. I do not propose that he is saying we have to find every event glorious. Murder, rape, and thievery are awful things. However, he has definitely stated that every moment should be glorious because of God's continuing presence. Whether because of the event or despite it, Willard writes that God is in every moment of our lives, making each one glorious in some way, shape, or form. More on this later. In the mean time, back to God.
We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.
I guess I've never really thought of it that way. I know I've experienced joy and exhilaration, just as I know I've experienced love and kindness and compassion. I already credit God as being the most loving and compassionate being, why not also the most joyful? I suppose my excuse would be that I often consider God's sorrow and God's anger and God's mercy because those come easily to mind from scriptures. But have I simply read over the accounts of when God rejoices in his creation? When in Genesis he declares all things "good", is he not saying he takes pleasure in them?
Or maybe it goes deeper. Maybe I do not want to consider a joyful God, because maybe I do not want to be joyful. I'm perfectly fine being optimistic in life, but taking joy in every moment... that almost seems like a burden. Yet I know it is not. Intellectually I know that Joy, as a fruit of the Spirit, is also something God cares deeply about. It is a part of his image, even as righteousness and peace and kindness are. I desire to be like him; should I not put just as much effort into being joyful as I do into being loving and holy?
We are enraptured by a well-one movie sequence or by a few bars from an opera or lines from a poem. We treasure our great experiences for a lifetime, and we may have very few of them. But God is simply one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right. That is what we must think of when we hear theologians and philosophers speak of him as a perfect being. This is his life.
Have you ever considered the life of God? Do you just assume that he sits up there somewhere above the clouds and constantly judges everything and everyone? Does he not take pleasure in his creation? In his creations? What is the life and existence of God? What does it entail? What composes his every moment? Perhaps these things are beyond our understanding. After all, who can really say how God experiences a moment? However, I would surmise that we can say God is joyful, for we know that, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." (James 1:17) And we know that joy is good. Ergo, joy comes from God. Ergo, God possesses infinite amounts of joy. God is a joyous being.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never ending skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.
~William Cowper
Not only are we given this wonderful description of God, but we also have a living image of him at work in Jesus Christ. Where does Jesus spend his time? Does he go careening around city after city calling judgment down on people and cringing at all the rule breaking?
No. He spends his time at weddings and banquets and dinners. He goes walking with his friends and family. He goes sailing on lakes. He loves being around children. He engages with people everywhere. Sure, he has those moments where he's off by himself praying, or weeping for a lost one, or upset at the wrongness of the world. But these do not define his life. His life is a life of joy. And so is God's.
Out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core - which we vainly try to capture with our tired but indispensable old word... love.
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