Whenever I am back in Hong Kong (which is where I grew up), I always go with my father to a nearby neighbourhood to eat lunch and spend time together. Sometimes we take the bus, often we drive, and we go to various restaurants around that area. But what I love most about those lunches isn’t the quality of the food or the speed of the service—what I love most is being able to spend time with my father. In those father-son moments, I honestly don’t really care what or where we are eating. All that matters is that my father is sitting across from me, and we are able to enjoy each other’s company and presence.
I think this is a little like the Christian life. Sometimes we are so caught up in the circumstances and destinations of life that we forget who we are doing life with! Our good heavenly Father, the majestic creator of the entire universe, is with us every single moment of every day. Because Jesus Christ the Son died for our sins on the cross and rose again, we can experience unfettered fellowship with God the Father—He is closer, greater, and more loving than any earthly father ever could be. He warms us with His presence. He overwhelms us with His kindness, expressed through the peace and confidence He gives us. He tends to our every need. He trains us through trials that are never too big or too small.
God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—delights in dwelling with His people and having them know Him.
Looking forward to the covenant He would make with all Christians, God said through the Prophet Jeremiah: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31.33–4).
As one of those forgiven through Christ, see just how much the Apostle Paul yearned to know Christ: “…I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3.8–10).
There are too, of course, those famous words of King David in Psalm 23, describing God as his shepherd:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for You are with me.
(Psalm 23.1–4)
Knowing God and enjoying a relationship with Him is what matters. No matter where we are in life, regardless of our circumstances, God’s loving and dear presence remains constant. Christians can and should be joyful against all odds not because our lives are smooth-sailing, but because we have a perfect Father who personally guides us through life. True joy can never be found in the rewards of this world; true joy is to know God and enjoy Him forever. This is what we were made for.
And even though we don’t know the exact shape of our lives, God does make clear our final destination. All who believe in Christ will one day physically enter the New Creation: a new world free from sin, where all Christians will live with God in perfect unity and peace—forever.