51. The Joy of God
(The audio is from the Zoom meeting and is not edited.)
© Daniel Yordy – 2021
In this concluding chapter of A Highway for God, we want to look just a bit at a God who has now come through the passageway of the faith of the Son of God living as us, and is now seen and known by all inside of His creation. We want to look at a God filled with overwhelming JOY.
Creation set free? No, that’s not really what this whole thing is about.
It’s God set free to be and to do as He is inside His creation.
It is God whom humans have bound with chains to their own hurt.
– Setting God free to be God among us – that’s what it’s all about.
It is I alone who has kept God out of my world all these many years.
The first word God planted in my heart when I was but 15 years old, even before I was really acknowledging Him, was “Give thanks in and for all things.”
I’m starting to do that, now, fifty years later. And the end result of giving thanks inside of and for the sake of all things is – seeing a God of outpoured goodness and truth everywhere I look.
I’m still learning, though, to acknowledge God in everything I do, that’s why I keep writing about it. I hope to change how I see and work with everything.
What makes God happy?
That’s a good question. I wanted something further than – What does God want?
What makes God happy?
Life – liberty – and the pursuit of happiness.
Happiness is not giddiness or foolish laughter. Happiness is not “bliss.” I would define bliss as being in a state of constant euphoria, something that would get old very quickly. The pursuit of happiness is NOT the pursuit of selfishness.
Happiness is the deepest of satisfaction inside of a job well done. Happiness is the certain possession of the things of greatest value.
Nothing makes me happier than to see my own children successful in what their hearts enjoy and in the work of their hands. My younger daughter built a log cabin at the park, mostly by herself. To see the things I once did, now done by her, gives me an immense happiness.
I think happiness, the happiness of our Father, goes even deeper. Here is a list of things that really, really make God happy.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).
Here is a man who has lost his sight, yet in his suffering, he continues to give thanks inside of all and for the sake of all. That moment, when God can reach through His anointed ones in the earth, you and me, and give sight to this man, is more deeply satisfying to God than we can comprehend. When you see that man, leaping and laughing in his joy, you are seeing God. That is God leaping and laughing.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol/hades, behold, You are there (Psalm 139:7-8).
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol/hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:9-11).
Calvinism posits that God draws immense satisfaction from the continuous screams of the lost in unending torment. Calvinism then extends that sense of deep satisfaction, even joy, to the redeemed, as they look “over” at those they knew upon the earth and hear their suffering and know they are being punished for their wickedness.
Talk about turning God into the devil and the redeemed into psychopaths.
One of my little banty chickens is hurting with some problem with his foot. At first I tried to ignore it, thinking maybe my wife would see it and do something about it. But then I realized that I am responsible for him, for it was I who put him into his present situation. Since realizing that, I have been sharing his suffering and am hoping that, when it is light, I can find the cause of his pain and draw him out from his suffering.
Why do I think that way? I think that way because God made me like Himself.
Here is a youth who was given some trinkets and a cup of wine, laughing giddily. Here is a king who has sacrificed all to save his people from great peril and now walks through the halls of healing, removing the darkness from those still hurting with a touch of his hands. Which one of these two knows HAPPINESS?
Yet such a king, even in the celebration of all victory, will never lose sight of his great sorrow or the cost of saving all of his kingdom into peace and joy.
God will never rest until every knee bows in giving thanks and every tongue confesses that Jesus alone sustains and carries them. So long as one human or one angel hides himself in torment, so long God will not be truly happy. This is why Jesus said that the gates of Sheol/hades will not keep you and me out.
Yet that long-term happiness in no way prevents the utter happiness of God in the present moment, as we see Him sharing our lives with us. You and I, acknowledging the Father as sharing our lives with us in all things, are the beginning of the released JOY of God.
You and I, turning all our difficulties through faith into goodness and blessing for the sake of others, are the beginning of Happiness inside our Father.
As I said earlier, the joy of God is a world where every human includes God as sharing life with them and every two or more humans, in relating together, include God as part of their friendship.
And so we see that the “path of life” mentioned by David and the path of the happiness of God are the same thing.
The path of life is not us going somewhere. The path of life is God joyfully rushing through us into being seen and known by all inside His creation. God’s happiness is a tender touch and a kind word given without guile, expecting the same to return.
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9).
Isaiah is speaking literally on the one hand, yet metaphorically on the other, that is, giving examples that farmers and parents would know immediately, yet as examples of everything upon the earth. And no, Isaiah is not defining “heaven,” but rather, earth inside of the heavens.
Think of a mother who releases her three-year-old boy to run and explore. He finds a hole in the ground and happily digs his hand into it. Before the knowledge of God filling everyone’s consciousness, the viper bites the boy. Think of the inexpressible grief of the mother. Yet when everyone acknowledges God everywhere they look, the viper will just move out of the little boy’s way and the mother will fear not at all.
This does NOT happen by God waving a “magic wand.” It happens only through you and me and all who love the revelation of Jesus Christ through them, turning every difficulty of life into goodness for the sake of others.
Restoring the earth is a process; it is a labor of love. Yet the word “restore” is not accurate, for taking the Father into joy means the earth as God intended it to be THROUGH synergeoing with humans.
Our focus through the Age of Tabernacles will not be those remaining in hades nor any angels of darkness. Our entire focus will be upon the earth and those living upon it, plants, animals, humans, angels and elementals, that is, things created of the substance of spirit.
God’s happiness is the earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord.
This labor of love, then, in bringing all things upon the earth inside of heaven into the knowledge of God is the work of more than a thousand years, actually. For we see in Revelation 20 that it all passes through another great loss before the full and final joy.
Knowing that our work will pass through death again, however, will not bother us in the slightest, for we will give thanks inside of and for the sake of all things, including all loss, knowing that we lose nothing, but all things that are ours will return to us again, each in its season.
And so I come back down to the joy my wife and I know in the present time, for I have shown from Scripture that our joy is indeed the Joy of God. And I am speaking of this acre-and-a-half in Shepherd, Texas that has become our care. I had wanted to share this joy with others as a community of Christ, but God said, “No, not yet, not at this time.” For that reason, I am released to just enjoy the restoration of our little patch of earth inside of heaven.
One of the ruling definitions of God and man, as we saw in Symmorphy VI: Mankind, is that we cannot know God without also knowing ourselves and we cannot know ourselves without also knowing God. This is the riddle God set so strongly inside our Bibles. We know God only by knowing a Man, Christ Jesus; because man is the likeness of God, we know man, ourselves as well as Christ Jesus, only by knowing God.
Here is my joy. – “If anyone loves Me, My word he will keep [guard and watch over], and My Father will love him, and we will come to and will make Our home with him in intimate closeness” (John 14:23). – Father sharing my life with me; Father at Home in my heart.
Out from that joy, then, I look at my present labor, and the only way to express what I feel is with Jesus’ words, “Pressed down, shaken together, and running over.”
My present labor, together with Maureen, is to turn this patch of earth into a garden.
I have just put into the ground my first four trees, two figs and two pomegranates. Maureen and I went to the Antique Rose Emporium and brought home eight beautiful rose bushes of differing varieties, though all are fragrant and bear rose hips. We intend to propagate these and spread them where we wish. The Gypsy Sue will line the entrance to our property.
I began this project with a plan in mind, but as we have worked, the plan has shifted on a regular basis. It’s like the unfolding of a tapestry, as we adjust the plan to new possibilities. Indeed, this joy has saved my life, for I needed to have my hands in the dirt every day. It’s hard work and slow-going, but I can get a bit done each day.
The point is that, as the Lord enables and provides, within three years, you will look at the pictures of the property when we bought it and then you will look at what it has become, and you will be astonished.
What I am doing is restoring the earth and making it beautiful with the care of a shepherd. And I find that I am joined with many others who are also seeking to restore there little bit of earth as they are able.
But east Texas is brutal towards the plants we eat for food. We are planting many native plants as well, that are able to flourish in these hot and bug-infested climes, but they don’t produce food for us. Our goal is to find that balance that gives the food-producing plants the best chance to do well, while filling the soil with life.
My few hours work early each morning is painful, dirty, and tiring. Planting my two fig trees got me a dozen ant bites. Yet I possess a deeper happiness than I have known in some time. In fact, I have to go back to my childhood to remember a similar happiness.
I am speaking of the joy of God, the bringing forth of beauty out from the earth through suffering.
It is said that beauty and affliction are the two things that touch the deepest part of our souls. Yet the affliction is neither “punishment” nor “woe,” rather, it is just the cost of bringing forth the beauty of life.
So God created man in His own image… – Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it (Genesis 1:27 & 2:15).
Happiness, being like God, is the joy of keeping all things in heaven-earth in balance, plants, animals, humans, angels, and elementals, everything flowing in harmony and peace. This is a costly role, but it is the bringing forth of great beauty. This is what we were made to do, and all things are presently in ruin because humans have not been doing their job.
Synergeoing with God making all things good.
We have never known a world in which the Father is free to be Himself inside that world. We have never known a God released into joy. The God we know now is a God of sorrow and the world in which we live is hostility.
This is why I love fairy story, that is, those fairy tales that evoke a sense of wonder and possibility. We know in our hearts that there is so much more that should be yet is not. More than that, we are designed to create together with God.
Yet the deepest joy of Father released will be, I believe, not the things accomplished or restored or even new worlds brought forth. The deepest joy of Father is the act of synergeoing in all things with humans as He always intended, God and us together making all things good.
And so I give thanks inside of the ant bites and for their sake, that the pain might result in goodness, and I bless the fig trees out from the Spirit of God as I place them in the ground.
Father and I garden together. The happiness God knows is my happiness, and the happiness I know is God’s.
In whatever field of action, writing, teaching, building, providing the things needed by others, it remains the same.
And thus the new age begins, the Age of Tabernacles, God among us.