Psalm 100:1-5
A psalm. For giving grateful praise.
1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Let us enter His Presence with joyful songs, for Psalm 100 calls us to "shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth" and "worship the LORD with gladness."...This joyful adoration, this sharing of praise, resonates deeply with the inherent human desire for shared joy that I believe is so central to our being...Just as we are called to "come before Him with joyful songs," our earthly delights often feel incomplete until they are expressed and shared with others...Knowing that "the LORD is God" and that "it is He who made us, and we are His" fuels this very impulse to share the good things we experience, much like the psalmist encourages us to "give thanks to Him and praise His name" for "the LORD is good and his love endures forever."...This act of sharing our joy, both with each other and in praise to God, seems to be a fundamental aspect of how we, His people, the sheep of His pasture, experience the fullness of His goodness...
I believe that the essence of joy is its inherent desire to be shared, a sentiment beautifully echoed in the writings of C. S. Lewis and foundational to St. Augustine's understanding of our purpose and being created by a LOVING God...St. Augustine said: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee."....As Lewis observed, "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."...This statement relates to St. Augustine's quote...
And these two comments resonates deeply with my own experiences...Watching a thrilling sporting event in an empty house lacks the vibrant enthusiasm that comes with shared excitement, leaving a hollow echo where joyful shouts should be...The very act of expressing our delight seems to amplify it, solidifying its reality...
Lewis further illustrated this fundamental human need for shared joy: "It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed...It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with."...These poignant examples highlight how our enjoyment is often diminished, even incomplete, without the opportunity to share it with others, especially those we love...The frustration of a solitary triumph or a breathtaking discovery underscores our relational nature."...
This inherent human longing to share joy finds its ultimate meaning in our relationship with God...St. Augustine articulated our purpose as being "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."...Lewis astutely connects these two seemingly distinct aims, stating, "But we shall then know that these are the same thing...Fully to enjoy is to glorify...In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him."...Our earthly experiences of wanting to share a victory, a beautiful vista, or even a simple joke are perhaps echoes of this deeper, innate desire to share our lives and our joys with the One who is the source of all goodness...
The "hollow echo" one feels in the absence of shared enthusiasm mirrors a broader human experience...Our joy seems to seek a witness, a connection that validates and intensifies it...Just as lovers find deeper delight in expressing their admiration, and a shared laugh amplifies the humor of a joke, our enjoyment of life's blessings is enriched when shared...This fundamental desire to connect and share points to our relational being, a reflection of the relational God in whose image we are created...Ultimately, the restlessness within us, as St. Augustine noted, is a yearning for the complete and shared joy found in communion with God, where our glorifying Him and our enjoying Him become one and the same, a joy meant to be shared for eternity...