Joy Renewed

Its one of my favourite things to witness: when a child meets an empty space and suddenly gets the urge to run. Not for any reason really. Its just because they can, and because running is fun. Its the pursuit of joy that pulls them forward.

Whenever I see a child running down a hallway, or perhaps across an empty stretch of lawn, I feel I am witnessing something holy, something originally intended. To watch a child run is to witness overflowing exuberant life. Perhaps, when a child abandons themselves to the emptiness in front of them, God’s own exuberant nature is on display.

I muse on this sign of childhood happiness and I wonder if time and aging must, of necessity, diminish our joy? If I can’t run like I used to does that also suggest joy itself must leak away as I age? Is this loss actually built into the way things are? The second law of thermodynamics tells us that everything eventually runs down. Must our happiness also grind to a halt?

I know people (even people of faith) who have leaked away all their joy. The acids of disappointment and resentment have worn their souls; they are angry, depressed, unforgiving. Really, they have become old of heart. Just as age can stop us from running, so it’s possible that the wear and tear of life can rob us of the joy Jesus promised (John 15:11).

Let me give you a quote from one of my absolute favourite passages in all of literature. It’s from GK Chesterton’s famous book Orthodoxy, in a chapter titled “The Ethics of Elfland”. Chesterton talks about how he came to faith by the wonder pictured in fairy tales, and by the sheer abundance of life he sees in children:

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

I am coming to see authentic Christian spirituality as participation in the eternal youth of God. It is worth meditating on Isaiah 40:27-31, where the prophet famously says that “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength… they will run and not grow weary.” Which suggests that joy need not be a diminishing asset connected to age and health, but rather a continually renewed and restored inner strength. Oh sure, our joy is certainly tested in life. We experience heartache and disappointment in many ways. And, in such times, we will wonder if our joy has left us entirely. But because our father is younger than we are, and because, according to the parable of the prodigal son, our father runs (toward us), we realize that we too can run into that open space ahead of us. We will be met with joy if we do.