A New Year’s Wish: Bless God with joy

My almost five-year-old grandson was playing nearby and suddenly started running toward me.

“I want to hug you,” he said.

Jack ran into my arms, wrapped his around me, and for a moment I had an inkling of how God must feel when we go to Him. Sheer joy.

God wants us close; He has said so many times.

Jesus says, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” He is talking to anyone who is weighed down by life. Who isn’t these days?

Jesus says if one person who is away from God and straying farther turns around and comes back, there is joy in heaven.

Jesus even welcomes pesky children. When parents brought their tots to him and his disciples shooed them away, Jesus rebuked the disciples. “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).

The disciples carried this forward.

James promises, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

Peter tells us, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18, emphasis mine).

The writer of Hebrews invites us to, “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

God wanting us close isn’t a new idea Jesus introduced. In the Old Testament, God scheduled annual festivals for Israel to come before him. His purpose: “You shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you” (Deuteronomy 12:7).

There is a sequence in this passage that I detected in my grandson. The Lord blessed Israel throughout the year and the festivals were their response—a time to enjoy the fruit of their labor and God being with them.

I’m quite sure our family outing a few hours earlier planted the seed of Jack’s hug. We were celebrating our oldest granddaughter’s birthday and before my wife and I arrived at the skating rink, Jack had been on the ice and face-planted against the wall. Bruised and quiet, he hunkered into his mother’s shoulder but agreed after a while to sit on my lap while we waited for his sisters to finish.

We sat for nearly an hour, him snacking on Oreo’s and pretzels, content to watch together the others skate.

The hug was his response to our time before. The festivals were Israel’s response to God with them through the year.

The COVID pandemic has made life challenging the past two years, yet God has been blessing all the same.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I want to bless God often this year with the same joy I felt when my grandson ran to me.