The Architect of Joy

For nearly two months now these thoughts have been percolating in my mind, but only in the last week or so did they crystallize. In my last correspondence I referenced how a father can be an architect of joy in his home. Let me unpack how this is showing up in my life, right now.

Like you, I’ve often heard that joy is more than just a feeling. Our joy cannot simply be subject to our individual, ideal everyday highlight reel. On its own, joy is not the outcome of flourishing in our vocation, or a thriving marriage, or when our children get along with each other and with others. Sure these are wonderful elements in our lives that we should aim for and work towards.

But when joy is tied to our preferred outcomes, we’d be better off to call this happiness. And happiness, though good, can be fleeting, often with shallow roots. Happiness will come and go throughout each day, being pulled and planted to and from the soil of our lives by the winds of encouragement, discouragement, disappointment, fear, victory, failure, mistake, anger, laughter and even achievement. It begins subtly, but happiness can become our attempt to mask the degree of control and comfort we want in our lives, and for me, lately it’s been rooted in the sin of self-sufficiency and independence.

But joy is different.

Instead, when we examine joy through a lens of faith, it reveals itself as a deep sense of gladness and contentment. And continuing with the agrarian metaphor of plants and soil; gladness and contentment can be likened to the native grass of our prairie lands, a noticeably mature, complex root structure able to withstand substantial wind currents.

Said another way:

Happiness is dependent on self. Its root system is often minerally deficient, tossed and turned, and contingent on the atmospheric conditions above ground.

Joy is dependent on the Father. Its root system abides, deepens, and depends on a soil soaked in God’s everlasting love.

Take a look at this image of various prairie plant root structures: the strength, stability, and health of the roots are strikingly obvious.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks poignantly about soil and asks the question of what type of soil we want to become. You see, good soil produces complex root structures for joy to flourish. It’s as if happiness is an immature plant that hasn’t yet established itself in the soil, even good soil.

For me, in slow and subtle ways, I noticed I began to rely on the immature, and often fleeting moments of happiness and preferred outcomes, a shallow root structure.

My ideal outcomes were driving me and my mood, and how I was showing up as a man, a father, and as a husband. Rather than abiding with the Father, being closely connected to the vine, intimately intertwined in a complex root structure of flourishing soil, I was instead being driven by self-sufficiency and independence, awaiting the next wind current to pull me from my mineral deficient soil.

And sure, I was having frequent moments of laughter, fun, encouragement and achievement. But if the outcomes I wanted didn’t align, I’d notice tremors of frustration, anger and even resentment.

Even as I’m writing this I chuckle because each of us are so easily blinded by the subtle ways we live outside of the Father’s love, living from the shadow or false-self, rather than the true-self.

Here recently, I had the privilege to spend a few days with a group of men who’ve become very special to me. Each year, we gather atop the mountain, each ascending in his own way, but collectively all at the same altitude, in need of the Father’s gentle invitation back, to abide in the vine, and to restore in each of us the joy of our salvation.

Patrick Miller, a faithful pastor and increasingly special friend, who’s been with me for each of these annual treks up Cheyenne Mountain, penned these words in the middle of a sleepless night while there:

Jesus treads this mountain.

The healer. Here. Hot in pursuit.

Of the half-hearted and the hard-hearted; Of hearts hopeless and harried;

Of hearts hidden in shadow, shouldering shame and the lie: Perform, pretend, play the part,

Or else be despised, denied, outside.

But Jesus treads this mountain, The Father before him, the Spirit behind,

The undying dance of love, that dies for the downtrodden, and does not demand an act,

Or the ideal, but only the real, That leaves the ninety-nine to seek the one,

Again and again and again and again and again and again.

My heart is heavy. Hopeless. Grieved. Angry.

But there is hope on this mountain! Because the hound of heaven pursues. Dogged, ragged, humble, and hungry. Eyes effervescent; effulgent with eternal love.

Jesus treads this mountain. He hunts on this mountain. He will not come down till he has what he wants. So, my soul, submit, surrender, unshoulder the shadow, risk the light.

Be seen, be known, be loved, be healed. Here.

Because the hound, the Son, the savior of sinners treads this mountain.

Exhale. These are such truthful words each of us need to hear, over and over, again and again, that he does in fact pursue us. And when we deepen our dependency on Him, intertwining the flourishing roots of gladness and contentment in the soil of our lives, joy does in fact spring eternal.

Since hearing Patrick thoughtfully recite these poetic words firsthand atop the mountain, I’ve found myself continually basking in the soul-drenching reality that I am in fact being pursued, as a beloved son. I guess what I’m wanting to say most here, and for you to know, is that the Gospel, the true Gospel of Jesus, isn't just for one-time decisions or desperate prayers and needs, the Gospel is for every one of us, each and every single day of our lives. It washes us anew, and meets us where we need it most, and usually where we don’t see it.

For me, it was a necessary cleansing to wash myself of the sin of self-sufficiency, independence and subtle control. Rather than running to the Father for help, I kept Him at arms length. Thankfully though, he came after me anyway. What a good, good Father, the architect of my joy.

Psalm 51 captures this well when King David cried out to God following the rebuke of the prophet Nathan following his sin with Bathsheba and the death of Uriah.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.