Signposts to Joy

Signposts to Joy

Jeff Lampl

One of my favorite passages in the entire Bible is. . . .

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”       Hebrews 11:13-16 (NIV)

Have you ever noticed a feeling within you that you aren’t quite at home yet?   Have you ever felt that there must be “something more?” 

Christianity tells us that we are citizens of Heaven and that in this world we are ex-pats, displaced persons, people who know we are made for a “home” that we’ve never been to, but which deep down inside we know must exist.   When we recognize this we are on the path to joy.  When we refuse to acknowledge this we harden ourselves to reality, to the hope of ever finding our true home.  As always, C.S. Lewis puts it best

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

If you and I are really paying attention we will also recognize that there is something in us that continually and relentlessly seeks to substitute something of this world for the real thing.    If we are made for heaven, that desire is already in us and it will even appear to us as a rival to heaven.  Any this-worldy good on which we fix our hopes, dreams, attentions and desires will always be something other than the real thing.   In some sense it will always be a fraud or at best a symbolic representation of what we really seek.

But, this is good news!    It seems to me that when one experiences an improper desire for an object, or even for a another person,  that is simply a signpost, a pointer, an awakening to the reality that a proper fulfillment of that desire actually exists.  

Personally, I fully identify with those who refer to this kind of yet unfulfilled longing as joy.   In this way of thinking joy is the piercing stab of longing that knows that yearning will one day meet its fulfillment, indeed its Creator.  

Thinking of it this way, would you ever want to lose your desire for something, your un- or never fully requited loves, your unfulfilled yearnings, and with them all the signposts that point to the future state of experiencing everything your heart ever truly yearned for?

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)