"Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian." G. K. Chesterton
From Eugene Peterson, "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction" on Psalm 128:
Everyone wants to be happy, to be blessed. Too many people are willfully refusing to pay attention to the One who wills our happiness and ignorantly supposing that the Christian way is a harder way to get what they want than doing it on their own. They are wrong. God's way and God's presence are where we experience the happiness that lasts. Do it the easy way: "All you who fear God, how blessed you are! how happily you walk on his smooth straight road!"
I grew up going to church, even attending a very small Lutheran elementary school. I learned about God and how, through Jesus, I could know God and go to heaven when I die. It wasn't until college that I began to nurture a relationship with God, and that is when I discovered the richness of joy that only comes from a relationship with God.
Despite many ups and downs, the vicissitudes of life, I have learned that true joy comes only through Jesus and spending time with him. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says:
"What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
So often we make life so difficult. It's the nature of our humanness.
Not that I'm a saint by any means, a theologean or a righteous disciple. But I am pragmatic. Life is simply easier and better when you know God. Life was made by God and is ordered by God.
God does not need us to acknowledge him. He is God for crying out loud. But the closer we get to him, the more we see and experience the joy he offers. Not without heartache, failures and mistakes, but with the certainty we are loved by the creator of the universe who cares less about our accomplishments and more about our enjoyment of his love for us.