God is in it

Sometimes, this is the most incomprehensible concept in the world for me to grasp and fully believe. God is somehow in this whole thing - in creation, in relationships, in the inner workings of human hearts, wrought with good and evil, in the births of living creatures, even in deaths, in wars, in awful atrocities. Not that God necessarily orchestrates evil along with the good, but that He is somehow intertwined with His creation. He feels the utter depth of our sorrow and experiences our pain alongside us. Likewise, He delights with us and is furthermore in a constant state of absolute joy.

The joy of God fascinates me. In Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the Murry family is adopted by a dog, which was sent to them from the ancient past via tesseract. They name the dog Ananda, which means, "that joy in existence without which the Universe will fall apart and collapse" (L'Engle). Not only is God in all this somehow, experiencing, hurting, orchestrating, redeeming, and loving, but His joy holds the entire Universe together.

And now turn in your hymnals with me to hymn No. 7, Ode to Joy. All together now.....