...can do anything He wants.

There is no one who can make God do anything He doesn't want to do, like eat His Brussel sprouts. Or question Him as to why He made Brussel sprouts in the first place.

Which means God didn't have to make the universe. No one made Him do it.

God made the universe because He wanted to.

He made it for the sheer delight of it.

He made it because...


...it brought Him JOY.


If it didn't, why would He have bothered???

The universe is the joyful expression of God's heart. It is the visible expression of His nature, of His overflowing love. Stars and galaxies and glaciers and mountains and wildflowers and gerbils and giggling babies just poured out of Him, exuberantly, extravagantly, joyfully.

God made the universe for the joy of it.

He made US for the JOY of it!

We ARE His joy!!!

And I believe that just as a parent's joy is in their child's joy, God's deepest joy is in OUR joy.

God's desire is that life be FILLED WITH JOY.

The universe was made from joy, for joy. It was made to be filled and resound with pure, wonderful, delightful JOY! That is why it is here. That is why WE are here.

The universe was made to be a JOY-FILLED place!

Of course, you don't have to look very far to see it doesn't always work that way... far from it. But, if the universe was made from joy to be joy – who messed it up????


I did.


And, not to point any fingers, you did too.

I mean, think of it. In all the universe, we are the only ones who have the freedom to do something other than God's will and desire. And so, if God's will and desire is for the abundance of life and joy – if there is anything less than that – who's fault can it be????

It is entirely ours.

That is what "sin" is. It is when we step out of God's will and go our own way, when we think we know better than God and do it our way - and it can't help but mess things up. It's like a wrong note in a lullaby, or too much salt in the soup. Things were designed to go one way, and we go another. And that always ruins things. And it always hurts... eventually.

And think of this too. Whenever we do anything that diminishes what God made the world to be, we are really stealing from God.

We are robbing God of His joy.

When we go our own way, and step out of harmony with God's will and desire (which is crazy, when you really think of it, because God's will and desire is for our joy, for the abundance of life! We think we know better than God???) – but when we go our own way – we mess things up. Instead of their being life and joy – there is pain and suffering and death. And it is all us. It is our doing. We make the world the mess that it is, so much less than what God meant it to be.

We steal from God (and we steal from each other) by diminishing the joy God meant there to be.

Which is bad enough, but it's like stealing from the guy who just built you a brand new house!

How strange that we continue to insist on our way when it turns out our deepest joy is found in God. We find our truest joy in knowing His love, in walking in harmony with His will – THAT is where EVERYTHING we desire is found.

Our deepest yearning, our deepest longing, is satisfied in knowing God - in God's Love. And ONLY in God's Love.

It is where we find pure, overflowing LIFE.


Funny how that works out! God's deepest joy is in our joy – and our deepest joy is in His joy.


Which, it seems to me, is just how Love works.