Psalm 90:14 (NLT)
Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,
so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.
The recent cold snap has reminded me of my childhood in Texas. On those (rare) damp, frigid days, we’d pile into the car and head downtown to eat at Mexican Inn, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant where the food was succulent and nobody spoke English. The (truly) authentic, homemade food tasted as good as it smelled and you imagined it to be. To this day, I desire these meals with all of my heart.
In our book, Piper writes something along the lines of, “joy involves desiring what we don’t have and what we can’t create.” Numerous times, I’ve desired the comfort of the food and associated memories. And have even tried to return there on my excursions to Texas. The original Mexican Inn has been demolished and the new one, which never lived up to the reputation of its elder, has closed its doors. And despite my repeated experimentation, I’ve never mastered one item from the menu. But the desire- and all the good memories attached to it- has never gone away.
While I’m being tongue-in-cheek, you follow my point. Once we get our first taste of Jesus, we want more. More of him. More of his healing. More of his peace. More of his suffering. More of his joy. Jesus is the joy we “don’t have and can’t create.” We must rely fully on him to bend our desire to him. We must be willing to lay down our desires and cling to his. Then we grab hold of JOY. In this life…and the one to come.
