I love watching a herd of horses grazing in an open pasture, or running free across the wide, sage-covered plateaus in Montana. I love hiking in the high country when the wildflowers are blooming—the purple lupine and the Indian paintbrush when it’s turning magenta. I love thunder clouds, massive ones. My family loves to sit outside on summer nights and watch the lightning, hear the thunder as a storm rolls in across Colorado. I love water, too—the ocean, streams, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, rain. I love jumping off high rocks into lakes with my boys. I love old barns, windmills, the West. I love vineyards...I love my boys. I love God.
Everything you love is what makes a life worth living. Take a moment, set down the book, and make a list of all the things you love. Don’t edit yourself; don’t worry about prioritizing or anything of that sort. Simply think of all the things you love. Whether it’s the people in your life or the things that bring you joy or the places that are dear to you or your God, you could not love them if you did not have a heart. Loving requires a heart alive and awake and free. A life filled with loving is a life most like the one that God lives, which is life as it was meant to be (Eph. 5:1–2).
John Eldredge,
Waking the Dead"...We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."
Paul to the Gentiles at Lystra, Acts 14
Hey I just did that not too long ago when I was having a really bad day. I was just trying to make myself feel better..kinda like Maria in the Sound of Music...Raindrops on Roses, etc, etc. It did make me feel better. Sometimes when people frame doing that with words like "Oh just try and think positive" it's comes off as trite and kind of annoying. But we need to do all we can in this life to feed hope.
ReplyDeleteIf Paul is right, then thankfully "feeling good" isn't entirely up to us to conjure. He seemed to think God even fills the hearts of the heathen with joy.
ReplyDeleteSo, perhaps we're feeling the very joy of God when we ourselves feel joy.
We feel His love when we feel love.
We feel His pain when we feel pain.
I think this is true in a literal sense. Gaze upon something that brings you deep pleasure and calm, and it's GOD'S pleasure and calm that you are feeling.
The way mothers feel when they look at their babies. The way a man feels when he finishes the project. The way team mates feel when they win, or when they lose.
Those are HIS feelings, I believe.
that "feeling" is one of the attributes Jesus used to invite Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, into a relationship with him..I'm reading "The Language of God" right now. Naturalism cannot account for "joy". There is no "propogation of the species" attached to the beauty of a sunset or a bird's song as the morning breaks.
ReplyDeleteWow. Talk about turning things around... the human genome project is almost the culmination of human arrogance. That we can go into our very coding and manipulate it to change ourselves.
ReplyDeleteAnd God picks this guy off with Joy. Just like Him, isn't it.
God inspires arts and sciences. I'm thankful he did not reveal the human genome to Adolph Hitler. I am anxious to see how he uses science to His ultimate glory.
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