The Joyful Heart of God
Now, Jesus himself was and is a joyous, creative person. He does not allow us to continue thinking of our Father who fills and overflows space as a morose and miserable monarch, a frustrated and petty parent, or a policeman on the prowl.
One cannot think of God in such ways while confronting Jesus’ declaration, “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” One of the most outstanding features of Jesus’ personality was precisely an abundance of joy. This he left as an inheritance to his students, “that their joy might be full” (John 15:11). And they did not say, “Pass the aspirin,” for he was well known to those around him as a happy man. It is deeply illuminating of kingdom living to understand that his steady happiness was not ruled out by his experience of sorrow and even grief.
So we must understand that God does not “love” us without liking us – through gritted teeth – as “Christian” love is sometimes thought to do. Rather, out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it.
The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core which we vainly try to capture with our tired but indispensable old word love.
—Dallas Willard,
The Divine Conspiracy
This honest prayer from The Valley of Vision captures what many of us feel but struggle to say—we often don’t know how to pray, or even what to pray for. Our words and hearts don’t always line up. We’ve asked for things that wouldn’t have been good for us. We’ve overlooked some of God’s greatest mercies. And in both our fears and our hopes, we’ve misjudged what we truly need. Especially in seasons of pain, addiction, or mental illness, it can feel impossible to find the right words or know how to come before God.
Dallas Willard invites us to set aside our distorted images of God as distant, dour, or disapproving, and to look instead at Jesus—full of joy, creativity, and affection. Jesus, who said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” was known not for grim seriousness, but for a deep, abiding joy that persisted even through sorrow. This is the heart of the God who made us—not a reluctant lover but a Father who delights in His creation, who not only loves us but likes us. In our battles for healing, wholeness, and hope, this is the God who walks with us—cheerful, tender, and endlessly kind, pouring out a love that is warm, not wary, and always welcoming. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics