God is joyous and filled with joy over you. He rejoices and is glad in you. Do you feel that joy? Or do you look at yourself in the mirror and still see a lost little sheep wandering, taking this path and that path, getting more and more lost?

When life or people or circumstances tell us that we’re not worth someone’s glance or kindness or mercy, it’s easy to believe that God is like the darkness that we see around us. We begin to internalize a life without joy, and a life that leads us to believe that following God down salvation’s road is one of trial and suffering, lacking joy.

My heart broke when a woman told me that she didn’t want to know God anymore than she already did because of what he might ask her to walk through. Her declaration rested on misconceptions about God’s character: That he is a joyless taskmaster rather than a joy-filled, strength-giving, compassionate God.

Misconceptions about God’s character will lead us down a path that’s joyless and lonely. This world overflows with suffering. Everyday someone loses a loved one, a marriage falls apart, kids and parents betray each other, and instead of finding comfort in God’s character, they run to earthly comforts.

The greatest struggle we might need to overcome is how God can simultaneously be joyous and just. Filled with joy and sorrow. Sorrow over his lost ones and joy over his found ones. But maybe it’s not so much as understanding as accepting and experiencing.

We have a saying in my home that if Mama put something away so it’s “safe” that it’s so safe it’s actually lost because I never remember the “safe” places. Several years ago, I needed my marriage license as one of five documents proving to the Iowa Motor Vehicle Department that I am indeed Jessica Marie Van Roekel.

But I couldn’t find it. I searched drawers and cupboards and nooks and crannies. I’m allergic to filing cabinets so I keep ours in the attic. But I trudged up the flight of stairs anyway and pushed open the trapdoor to the attic and glared at the black box.

I rummaged and shuffled and dealt with unruly metal drawers that refused to slide like butter to close. I wrestled those drawers and dealt with the squeaking metal that has the same affect on me as nails on a chalkboard has to you. But for all that annoyance I found no marriage certificate.

Still undaunted I kept looking. For 3 hours. Life stopped. I dumped drawers and rummaged through cupboards. The “safe” place held it’s location secret no matter where I looked. Meanwhile at the courthouse, and unbeknownst to me, my husband decided to have a copy of our license reprinted.

In the meantime, I re-checked that nasty old filing cabinet and found the missing license on the floor of the drawer, underneath the hanging files. I skipped downstairs with joy in my heart just as my husband called to tell me that I could stop my frantic searching. So we now have two copies of our marriage license and both are safe and found. Not safe and lost.

My point? We rejoice when we find what we thought was lost. I felt a little like the parable of the women who lost her coin as I searched for my marriage license.

A long time ago, in a perfect garden, joy, peace, and God and man meeting face to face was lost. And in the ensuing centuries, mankind experienced enmity with God until Jesus’ work of death and resurrection on the cross. God carries joy and sorrow. Sorrow over broken relationship and joy over restored relationship.

God rejoices. It’s part of his character and one we need to embrace. God doesn’t lead and guide us with a stern countenance, but he leads us with joy. He tells us to go forth with songs of gladness. If joy wasn’t an integral part of his character than why do we read so many references encouraging us to rejoice, to experience joy? To know God as joyous is to grow in our relationship with him.

Consider the Parable of the Lost Son. Aren’t we all lost sons and daughters at one time? Haven’t we lost our way and ran away from our God rather than to him? The joy the father felt as he finally saw his faraway son is the kind of joy that God feels for you when you come to your senses and come back home.

No matter where you are in your walk with the Lord–whether you’re like my friend and find yourself adrift  in misperceptions about God or resting in the delightful fact that God is rejoicing over you this moment, may your eyes be lit from within because of your preciousness in God’s sight.

He see you and rejoices. He oozes joy because of you. If joy were sparkles, you’d be shimmering like a glitter-bomb.

Remember that thin place? It starts here: Embracing the truth that God is joyous. That he is a laughing kind of Lord who knows gladness when he looks at you because you bring joy to his heart.

Oh friend, how he loves you. How he wants you to know that he abounds with joy and gladness because you are his own.

Rest in that truth. Live from that knowledge. You are God’s joy.

The Takeaway

Read Luke 15. Pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal God’s heart of joy for you.