That your Joy may be Complete

Do you remember the first crush you had? The way he looked at you across the room, and your heart began to pound and quicken. The way your skin tingled when his touched yours accidentally.

Do you remember the way it felt the first time you held hands with the one whom you wanted so much? About how it was like making love with two hands entwined into each other. The palm of your hand becoming an entirely new and sensitive organ that could not wait to find his hand again?

Or the first time your lips found another’s, how the lips have ten million tiny nerve endings and your mouth molds into another’s in pure pleasure.

Or if you’ve birthed babies, do you remember the first time your baby lay at your breast after you’d previously held her only in your swollen belly? how you caressed her super soft skin, her body furled upon your shoulder as if still in the womb. How you delighted in touching and exploring every single piece of her body, counting her fingers and toes, waiting for her eyes to open.

Do you remember the longing, the ache of the wait – the wait of being seen by the crush, the wait of his touch, the wait of hand holding? But that when it was over, you longed for even more. A second time to hand hold and embrace. For as soon as the wait is over, you forget it, lose sight of how hard it is to wait and long and want.

Do you remember the long nine months of waiting, of carrying that babe on your chest? of feeling heavy and scared? of pushing through the pain to come to the joy of your delight and praise.

The caverns of our heart are filled with things like the seeds that are sown. Sometimes, the joy is snatched by Satan, and our caverns just stay caverns. Sometimes we just don’t want to grow in-depth, so the roots of the seed get stuck in the dark, unfurl a bit, and then stop growing. The plant seen from the top dies and withers away. And then, sometimes, we’ve grown as a great big plant, with a great root system, but we get sick with disease – worrying and wondering and all the different things. The plant stops seeking the light, but it only takes somebody coming along and cutting back the overgrowth around it to find the light again. The heart is dark, but every seed does its greatest work in the dark. Seeds are planted in dark places and grow there. The seeds get big and come into their full glory, out of the dark, but there is still work being done down under, in the ground, in the secret hidden places of the heart.

The seed comes with joy. Always joy, never-ending, all consuming joy. Just like the moment you held hands for the first time or kissed the baby on the head or felt adored by someone in the room, the feeling of exhilaration and ecstasy.

King David longed for a woman so much he committed adultery and had her husband killed. His desire impregnated her and killed a bit of his desire for God. Sin does that.

Because of his sin, he prayed in earnest,

“Help me hear joy and happiness as my accompaniment,
    so my bones, which You have broken, will dance in delight instead.

Give back to me the deep delight of being saved by You;
    let Your willing Spirit sustain me.” Psalm 51:8, 12 (The Voice)

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalm 51:12 (NIV)

What if we are the result of the earnest prayer of a righteous man, King David? What if we are the people whose joy has been made complete? There is nothing quite like the joy of the first time, and yet, God says we get to have this joy over and over again when we delight in Him again and again. We are in the middle of a long wait, the Father working on the caverns, excavating and reshaping, all for the moment of glory and joy.

According to what I learned at Allume by Timothy Willard, we are the gasp of God, better known as His delight and beauty. (<–This will be the best 30 minutes of your day.) When He created us, we were very good, we were very beautiful. We caused Him to pause, like the mom caressing her newborn son on her chest.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:5-13

If the Word growing in us helps us to become Oaks of Righteousness for the display of His splendor (Is 61:3), then we get to keep on remaining in Him. That’s our life’s work – to remain in the warmth of His love. Being still, gazing at Him. Like a tree that starts as a seed, we seek the light. The more we grow, the more steadfast we become, bending only to the wind. We learn as we root in His love how not to listen to the devil, how to become soft, how to hold the cares of this world in loose hands because nothing is as beautiful as He. We don’t have to worry about how deep and wide and high and long we become. We are unique, no two alike.

As we grow, He prunes the lifeless parts of us. He molds the dark caverns making room for greater roots. If beauty is a pause, a gasp, it becomes our breath, our heartbeat. We remember the joy of our salvation again, because we see Him. We become the thing of splendor pointing to the Lord. As we grow, we drop seeds. The long wait, the suffering, is part of the remaining that our joy may be complete, dropping seeds of hope and joy just as we look at Him, gazed fixed in adoration and joy. God’s beauty becomes our beauty. Jesus in us, us in Him, remaining together, two in one, working to gives seeds to a world of hearts longing for Home. The Joy of the Lord, always pointing up to the Light, becomes our Strength (Ne 8:10), and we are made complete. We are His praise, His joy, His exhilaration, and He is ours.