The pallet of pavers sits right outside my office window. It is a reminder of joy.
Hmmm. I suppose that’s not something you hear every day.
How could a stack of red brick-like pavers symbolize joy?
That, I suppose, would depend on your perspective. It’s not really the pavers themselves that turn my thoughts to joy, but merely my recent experience with them. It’s possible by the time I’ve done the labor necessary to utilize the rectangular chunks of concrete, I may have a completely different frame of reference for them.
Life is like that. Today, joy. Tomorrow, toil. After that, who knows? Joy again. Or, pain. Perhaps, even sadness.
But, what about the pavers?
And, the joy?
Not my joy—well, not exclusively mine—but I was there to get a taste of it.
Perhaps, I should explain.
A friend, who lives next door to my grandchildren (yes, to my daughter and her husband too, if it comes to that), offered to sell me the pavers a couple of weeks ago, so we made a deal. I would need to pick them up myself, no small feat, since there were more than three hundred of the heavy little bricks.
By myself didn’t sound like such a good idea.
I recruited my grandchildren to help me load and count them. Since they live next door to the fellow with the pavers. And, since there are four of them and only one of me. You know—by myself.
So it was that on a recent afternoon we found ourselves in the mid-July heat counting and stacking. Ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit sounded less furnace-like when I was in my air-conditioned living room than it did at the tailgate of that pickup truck.
The sun beat down and the sweat poured from our faces and various other locales. Still, there was nothing but good-natured teasing and joyful banter from the kids and their mom. Black widow spiders and crickets galore did nothing to change the mindset.
Perhaps it was the hundred-dollar bill I offered beforehand that set the mood. No, it couldn’t have been that; there was no such offer.
Maybe, it was the ice cream and pizza I had promised them. Again, no. All I promised them was the chance to help an old man move heavy, dirty pavers from one place to another, all while keeping track of how many they had each moved.
They worked with joy! With no promise of any payment whatsoever, they labored in the blasting sun for over an hour. Joyfully. And then, they offered to come to my house and help me unload every single one of the despicable things.
I don’t understand it. Whatever happened to the carrot or the stick? Shouldn’t they have been either offered a reward for their work, or conversely, a punishment should they refuse to comply? Isn’t that how children learn?
Joy. Simply in achieving a task and spending time with people they love. This is a mystery to me. Really. A mystery.
Perhaps we can work this out.
I am a follower of Christ, also known by the title Christian. We Christians talk a lot about joy, sometimes scolding folks who are unfortunate enough to call it happiness instead of by its proper title. I wonder if that’s the right way to go about demystifying joy.
Possibly not.
Still. What about this thing called joy?
Maybe we could start with, since I am a Christ-follower, well—Christ. You know—the author (the initiator) and editor (perfecter) of our faith. Come to think of it, there’s a passage that says just that. And here’s a surprise; the verse talks about joy, too.
We look to Him, the author and the finisher of our faith, who, for nothing more than the joy of completing the thing, gave His life on the cross, discounting the shame, and sat down beside God in heaven, at the right hand of His throne. (Hebrews 12:2 ~ my paraphrase)
Our Savior, the One who set us on the road of our faith and who will bring it all to completion, came for the joy of doing just that!
I’ve heard it suggested that the joy which was set before Him was being able to sit down beside His Father in Heaven. But He already had that before He came. If that was the joy talked about here, He needn’t have come at all (Philippians 2:5-8)
Yes, He was elevated to that position again, but He wasn’t working for that as a reward. Simply for the joy of accomplishing the task before Him, He came in love for the whole world.
I don’t need to tell you His work conditions weren’t the easiest. Early in life, His parents had to flee their homeland to find safety for Him. As an adult, His people rejected Him. The religious leaders hated Him, persecuting Him and His followers endlessly. He had no place to sleep. He was hungry. He knew the sorrow of losing loved ones. And finally, one dark day, the humans He came to save killed Him.
Joy? It’s still a mystery to me.
And yet, there is something…
Oh, yes! The children. My grandchildren. They did that. For the joy right in front of them, they endured.
And, there it is.
He said to them, unless you become like this little child, you’ll not see heaven. (Matthew 18:3 ~ my paraphrase)
As a little child, with joy and humility, we are to serve. In heat, sweating and thirsty. In cold and rain and floods and sickness and poverty and turmoil and…
He calls us to joy. Always.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ…
Joy. In the journey.
And, while we move the bricks.
A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.
(Mother Teresa)
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Romans 15:13, NLT)
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2019. All Rights Reserved.
