“Life’s greatest joys are always experienced in community.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – April 26, 2025
My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad. My soul will rejoice when your lips speak what is right. Proverbs 23:15-16, RSV
I’d like to invite you into a brief experiment of sorts. Take the next 30 seconds or so and think about the two or three most joyful moments in your life. When was your heart overflowing with delight and gratitude for the gift, beauty, and wonder of life? Resist the urge to rush past this invitation, for I believe it is an invitation through which the Lord wants to meet us today and teach us a great truth about the way he has made us. Let’s reflect together.
(Thirty seconds of reflection)
What came to mind? For me, several scenes rushed through my head in quick succession: my wedding day, the birth of my children, my wife and I serving together on a mission trip, vacations with friends and family to the mountains or the coast, seeing my kids take courageous steps of faith- trying a new sport, or standing up for their siblings. If we took another minute or two, I’m sure many more moments of joy would rise to the surface. Yet there’s a remarkable thread that links all of my moments of joy: every single one of them involved other people. Was the same true for you?
Though of course we all have known joy as individuals and in private, life’s greatest joys are always experienced in community. There is a depth of delight and meaning in life that is only known when our joy is shared, and this is by design. We are made in the image of a community of love, and we reflect the love of the Trinity when we live in community with one another.
And as today’s Proverb reminds us, it isn’t just community in some superficial or simplistic sense. No, it is community that is rooted in the shared life that we live as the people and family of God, journeying together in the same direction, learning to love as we have been loved and to serve as we have been served. It is for this reason that the father’s heart in Proverbs 23 is glad. It isn’t just that he is living a faithful life, but his joy is shared and increased as he sees his son delighting in wisdom. In truth, this is a joy that is even greater than the joy that is possible in its own isolated faithfulness.
So, let us give thanks for the gift of community and the shared joy that is possible when we walk together in faith, encouraging one another in word and deed to walk in the way of wisdom as sons and daughters of the Lord.
Prayer
Father, thank you for the shared joy that we know as people who live in community, just as you live in perfect communion with the Son and Spirit. Amen.
Application
With a heart of gratitude, continue today’s practice of recalling moments of joy throughout your day.
Related Reading
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10; Romans 12:10; Hebrews 10:24-25
Worship Resource
Jon Guerra: Who is Greatest?
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