So I’ve already spoken time after time of my deep desire to be totally and completely with Jesus. If you know me, you know that the thought of Heaven – the thought of being reunited with my very best friend – it brings me to tears.
Every fibre of my being longs to be united with my brother, my creator, my friend – the one who knows me fully and loves me still. The one who doesn’t get tired by my constantly wanting to be with Him. The one who actually delights in me in every single moment. I just want to be with Him. Because when I am, it’s then that I feel most filled with joy, most myself.
Last week my dear friend shared with me her favourite verse, and it’s just what I feel.
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” Psalm 73:25
There’s just nothing here on earth that can compare to the joy I experience when I’m with God, it’s literally an otherworldly joy. There’s nothing about Heaven that I want more than I want Him.
My joy on earth is so full. It’s my name. It’s who I am. But I can’t help but know that there’s even more to be had when I’m finally with the one I Love.
I want to share something with you. There are few verses in the Bible that I relate to more than John 16:22.
In it, Jesus had just told His best friends the bitter news that soon He would be leaving them and that soon He was going to die. And then He says this:
“So now you have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
God knows this is how I feel. I feel like my joy, as full as it already is, can’t fully, 100% be in my hands until I see Him again. I think it’s a little bit like the way a parent loves their child – they may be fully content and excited and thriving in life, but they’re filled with this bittersweet sorrow knowing it would be just that much better if their kid was there with them too.
All I want is Him.
But then I started to wonder. Jesus told us that it was better that He leave so His Spirit could come and be with us always, not bound by physical boarders or limited by humanity’s ability to only be in one place with only a few people, but with everybody, always.
I wondered .. if He’s with me always – His Spirit alive within me – shouldn’t my joy be full, completely at its threshold? Was my problem perhaps not that full joy was unattainable, but instead I wondered, am I not satisfied enough by Holy Spirit?
Rather than attempt to understand this massive question with my finite mind, I thought I’d take it to the one whose knowledge is endless. I told God “I have a really genuine question. Please give me a really genuine answer. .. Am I not satisfied enough by Holy Spirit?”
Immediately He took me back to John 16:22.
“So now you have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
“So now you have sorrow, but I will see you again …”
This promise of everlasting joy would come after the disciples saw Jesus again.
So maybe this deep longing within me really was a gift. Maybe it really is a good thing that I long for Him fully. And maybe, just maybe, when I see Him again, full, complete joy will be mine not just to have, but mine to hold.
And then I heard Him so clearly say to me:
Farrah, you are not dissatisfied with Holy Spirit, you are dissatisfied with the sin that separates us. This is my encouragement to you – the more obedient you are, the less sin there is. The less sin there is, the less separation there is among us. The less separation, the more joy.
This month my desire was to operate out of complete obedience – to go where my best friend went and to follow whatever He said, because He really does know what’s best. Now I realize this is why. Because when I grieve His Spirit, I’m actually just grieving myself. But when I follow Him totally, nothing separates us, and I get to be with Him completely. And it’s then that He restores to me the joy of my salvation – the joy of getting to know Him without any hindrance.
“So now you have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
The joy He has given me is mine to hold. Nobody can withhold it from me unless I choose to withhold it from myself. So, rather than living a life of mediocre joy, I choose a life of completely chasing after the founder of my joy, allowing nothing to separate me from Him, allowing nothing to separate me from my Joy.
