Do You Know the Extent to Which You Are Capable of Experiencing Joy?

Joy is a resonant response in the heart of a man.

I believe that God created every single person very lovingly to be unique.

How we are shaped – who we are – defines how we connect. First, it defines how we connect with God to receive and reciprocate the perfect love that God is. Second, it defines how we connect with others, fitting in to God’s redemptive plan for His creation.

Joy is a natural response that we experience when those two connections are as God designed them to be.

Those connections are hindered by sin and as a result our response, our ability to experience joy, is muted.

But there are times when we experience true joy, pure joy the way that God intended. Moments where our heart sings in ways that we hardly can believe (yet always have longed for).

In those moments we are closest to be-ing as God intended us to be.

In those moments every aspect of our being resonates powerfully in response to every single detail of the situation.

A look. A laugh. The smells of a cool summer night. A thought. A smile. A glimpse. The warmth of the lights shining up on the stage. The stroke of the brush or the sound of your fingers hammering on the keyboard. The presence of a friend. A word. Even the silence and the stillness.

All of it gently shaking you and you vibrating wildly the way that you are meant to.

Pay attention in these moments for in them we find clues to what God made us to be.

I’m not necessarily talking about your calling or your purpose in life. I’m talking about the gift that God has given you by making you able to receive Him. By connecting in these moments we are connecting with Him. And in these moments we get a glimpse of how this world is supposed to be.

What are your moments?

Here is one of mine.