Joy

Saturday. Day three of rain. Jack is despondent now. Three days without a walk and his blonde head is barely visible in the window. He’s lying prostrate on the couch as though it’s the last few moments on his death bed.
I think it may be in their thirties that men start to realize that they’re never going to achieve the superhero status that they had always somehow believed that they were going to spontaneously evolve into at some point in their life. I emailed a friend not long ago with something like this sentiment. We had survived the horror of our twenties together where are goals and dreams were ranging between professional football at one end of the spectrum and President of the United States at the other end. Now, it seems like we’ve let our goals shrink down to more reachable items like bed, food, clothes, and matinee movies.
Honestly, I hear the Lord speaking through the way my dog stares at me behind the glass door leading to our backyard. It’s like he has placed pure joy in his wild, scraggly face. He doesn’t care how long he has to wait or what horrible conditions he has to endure for that one exuberant half hour he gets to walk with me through the neighborhood; it’s what he lives for. I think this is the kind of joy the Lord is wanting to approach Him with; as though nothing else matters except the moments when we can catch a glimpse of Him through the snot-spotted glass or dance in front of Him because we know we’ll be going on a walk together. And nothing else matters. No other thought can weigh our minds down in those moments. That is the joy I crave.