Unfiltered Joy (Friday Devotional)

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

- Psalm 118:24

Lately it seems like you can’t turn on the TV without seeing a team celebrating a championship victory. First it was the New York Knicks snapping a 53-year title drought in San Antonio. The next night it was the Carolina Hurricanes lifting the Stanley Cup after defeating the Las Vegas Golden Knights. And with those contests behind us, now Americans are joining the rest of the world in turning their eyes to the World Cup, where in a month one nation will win arguably the most envied title in all of sports.

Each time you see a team win a championship, whether it’s in the World Series or in Little League, the scene is the same: teammates dancing around, hugging each other tightly, whooping and hollering in ecstasy. Fans of the victorious team honk car horns and launch fireworks and revel spontaneously in the streets. And those are just the instantaneous celebrations, all before the official parade attended by hundreds of thousands of well-wishers.

We’re drawn to those scenes because they showcase something we so rarely see from adults: pure, unfettered joy. Athletes who have worked for such moments their entire lives no longer feel pressured to put on stoic faces or “act like they’ve been there before.” Fans who have endured season after season of heartbreak now replace their groans of frustration with cries of jubilation. Nobody is self-conscious and nobody is trying to impress. Caught up in what’s been accomplished, everyone just rejoices together.

It occurs to me that we rarely let ourselves celebrate that way. We smile, but not too widely. We laugh, but not too loudly. We shout for joy, but only if we’re sure it will be received well. We’re happy to be happy…but that happiness is muted by insecurity.

But if sports can inspire the kind of unfiltered joy we’d rarely show elsewhere, surely faith can too. The Bible tells us in so many places to rejoice in the Lord, to celebrate his mighty deeds, to praise him—and surely that joy isn’t meant to be restrained by the fear of what others might think. The God who creates, saves, and sanctifies his children is worthy of their full-throated worship.

This is the day that the Lord has made…rejoice in it like you’ve won the greatest victory imaginable. After all, in Christ you have.