Daily Word

The most beautiful characteristic of the spiritual life is the joy of living: the child's spontaneous happiness at just existing - this is the joy of Jesus conveyed to us.

To be born again is to become a child again, set up for the joy of living: to "sing and dance."

Early church leaders described the Trinity with the term perichoresis (peri – circle, choresis – dance): the Trinity is an eternal dance in which the Father, Son and Spirit sharing their mutual love, glory, happiness, joy and respect.

When God created man, His intention was thus to invite more and more creatures to the eternal dance of joy.

Sin means that man steps out of the dance and destroys its beauty and rhythm. People begin to collide and tackle and step on each other's feet instead of moving with grace, rhythm and reverence.

Through Jesus, God re-enters creation to restore rhythm and beauty.

Sorrow entered through the fall – joy is regained in the regeneration of salvation, the joy and dance for which the children of men were originally created.

This is extremely beautifully expressed in Proverbs 8:30-31 which can best be translated: “I was daily His delight, playing always before Him, playing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the sons of men.”

Humans were created to be the playmates of the Son: created for dancing and joy - participation in the divine Life.

This is what Hugo Odeberg ex. professor of the New Testament at the University of Lund, Sweden said: "The meaning of life is to play and rejoice in God's own Spirit, play and rejoice together with God's own Word. The intention of God, the Creator, with all His creation is from the beginning, that all His works, small and great, should rejoice before Him, together with Him in jubilant happiness, in radiant vitality, in wonderful harmony and individuality, in fruitful activity and sweet rest, in perfect bliss without end. Because such is the life that radiates from the eternal Creator.”