I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” (Psalm 16:2)Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. (Psalm 73:25)
Who are the most joyful people you know? I’ve been thinking about that. I guess it’s the ones who focus on good stuff. Their joy is sometimes temporary because what they thought was good turns out to be not so much.
The nearly perpetually joyful acknowledge that every good thing comes from God. They look around and see the hand and generosity of God everywhere. They can discern what comes from God and cling to those things, avoiding the rest.
The really good stuff is beneficial, lasting, readily available, maybe even free. I have enjoyed swimming the past few weeks. Water is good. It’s life-sustaining. If there’s enough of it you can cool off in it. It will hold you up and allows you to exercise with low impact. It’s beneficial, lasting, and unless you live in a desert or in California the past few years, available and free. It’s a pure gift from God. It’s connection to Him is direct. Man does nothing to water to make it good. It’s just good. Now man can mess it up, pollute it, but if we don’t mess with it, it’s good.
Consider other good stuff: cool breezes, starry nights, mountain vistas, clear skies, all great good things direct from God. What about sweet fruits, tasty vegetables and juicy meats. Then there are sizzling steaks, rice and gravy and chocolate. Okay so man gets a bit more involved, and some discretion is necessary, but to the wise, these too are gifts from God. What about smiles, hugs, encouragement, friends, and lovers? You might not so easily connect them to God, but they are His gifts as well. Just because as humans we can distort, corrupt or withhold them, they still originate with the Creator. They are good things from Him. Good things come from God because God is good.
Let’s go a bit further. There is no good thing that does not come from God. There are plenty of things that look good, feel good, or taste good, but ultimately aren’t good for us. God knows the difference. Since Eden we have been tempted by the lie that we can, on our own, know what’s good for us and what’s not. Going down that road is death. “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17 When we try to decide for ourselves what’s good for us, joy becomes very fragile and very temporary.
God has told us what’s good and what’s not. He told us what to eat in Eden and what to stay away from. Those things haven’t changed. We have gather more knowledge and experience over the many years since Adam and Eve. We haven’t gotten wiser. We certainly aren’t wiser than God.
Joy lies in recognizing what’s good and soaking those things in. Sadness and death comes with messing with everything else, no matter how good it may look, feel or taste.
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