In Your presence is fullness of joy; in your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11 

When is the last time you felt pure joy?  Aside from a birth or a graduation, have you experienced much joy in just…life?

It is so easy to forget that life of a follower of Jesus is a life of true joy, and that our joy is found in a Source that’s outside of our life circumstances. God’s presence is where fullness of joy and pleasures forever are, says Psalms 16:11. When is the last time you celebrated being alive?  When is the last time you celebrated your marriage or a special friendship?  In a world of increasing darkness, isolation and emptiness, God’s people must purposefully cultivate lives that are what 2 Corinthians called “the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:15).  The world needs to see us celebrating God’s goodness with joy!

Danish writer, Isak Dinesen, told a story of two spinster sisters living in a remote village in Denmark in the 1880s. Theirs were lives of faith marked by joyless duty. One day a mysterious woman named Babette comes to board with them.  Babette wins a $10,000 lottery and wantonly uses all her fortune to prepare an incredibly extravagant feast for all of the somber villagers who agree to come but agree not to enjoy the wasteful meal.

During the lavish dinner, touched by such an utter act of sacrifice and love on Babette’s part, the evening is infused with joy, with forgiveness, with celebration!

Throwing a $10,000 dinner party is optional. But take some moments today doing something, eating something, sharing something that brings joy to you and to those in your life joy!