The Point is Joy & Enjoyment

On a recent backpacking trip with my oldest son, we sat atop a bluff with the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean below, watching the sun set over the western horizon. Armed with our Mountain House freeze-dried meals, we soaked in the silence of the moment while sharing dinner.

Wondering where the mind of my 19-year-old was at that moment, I asked a question that ended up changing my life. I said, “What’s the best reason you can come up with to explain why God made all of this? He could have made everything black and white—or not made anything at all. So why this?”

We started discussing various aspects of God and His nature. Maybe He created to demonstrate His power. While His power is clearly on display, there was no need for God to show off. The same went for His glory, wisdom, holiness, etc. None of these attributes seemed to fully explain the experience of existence.

Then we hit upon an idea: God didn’t need creation. He is wholly satisfied within Himself. He enjoys being Him—perfectly and eternally.

But what if, so that His joy might be expanded through the experience of other beings, He created everything we know? Here's the answer we landed on:

God created the world and then populated it with creatures made in His image so that the enjoyment God has of Himself might be entered into by creatures uniquely created to perceive, receive, and enjoy the joy that God has in all that He is.

This made sense. This is why the universe exists in 4K color, why flowers exist, and why the blue of the sky is the shade it is. Blazing sunsets, towering mountains, the delicate snowflake, and the massive Giant Sequoia—all are manifestations of the joy of God. We can’t hear it, but the ant, the rock, and the heavens are already declaring the glory of the Lord.

Saved people are given new hearts that can be tuned to this universal chorus. We can learn to see, then say, then sing:
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised!”

That last phrase is important, because the enjoyment of God—and all Christian joy—is an objective fact, not merely a subjective feeling. The Garden of Eden demonstrates this: God and man walked together in perfect harmony. And God told man to live in freedom and joy. There was no need for peace, because conflict had not yet been experienced.

Sin, then, is not simply rebellion—that's the action. The heart of sin is an attitude that says, “The joy of God is not something I enjoy myself. I want my own joy and enjoyment apart from God.”

Think about this for a minute: God says, “I created you to enjoy Me by entering into the joy I have for Myself, which I will make yours.” And we, as a class of creatures, have said “no” to that offer. The wrath of God is a reasonable response to our rejection of Him.

But even in a fallen world, God still opens the eyes of some. These respond by perceiving:
“Great is the Lord!”

We proclaim this because we read that God has invited us to enter into His own enjoyment—the joy He possesses in Himself. In receiving the joy of the Lord, we are invariably led to worship:
“...and greatly to be praised!”

Want to know what worship is? It’s not giving God something He lacks. All existence is already praising Him. Worship isn’t for God—it’s for you. It’s the mode and means given to us to enter into the universal, creation-wide worship that is already taking place. Worship is aligning your heart, soul, and mind so that you can declare in joy:
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised!”

Only joyful people can be worshipful people. Even when circumstances are unhappy, joy sustains our worship. Angry people cannot be worshipers of God—anger is antithetical to joy. Blind people can’t be worshipers, even if they can sing. You can’t worship what you haven’t seen.

At the heart of existence and experience must be divine joy—a divine joy we can access by faith, and a joy-filled faith we can live by on earth.

This is the best answer we came up with, as we watched the blazing sun set into the azul-colored Pacific, sitting on a towering rocky bluff surrounded by a myriad of wildflowers, with a backdrop of green rolling hills concealing their summits in hairy crowns of towering conifer trees.

We just sat there without saying a word, with hearts attuned to—and singing along with—the universe:
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.”