This is the final post in a series of three starting with The Hope Dare, and including John the Baptist and Peter Pan: The Quest for Lightness of Heart.  I’d be honored if you went on the whole journey!

My son Brody likes to run.  Ashley and I started to see shades of it when he was a little boy.  I remember sitting in the bleachers at one of his coach-pitch little league games in Jacksonville Beach, FL watching him hit.  Back then he was small in stature.  He wasn’t an imposing figure in the batter’s box, but if/when he made the slightest contact, he was nearly guaranteed a spot on base.  The ball would bounce down the third base line at a decent clip, but his legs carried him exponentially faster down the first base line.  The in-field didn’t stand a chance.  He was a great lead-off man.  He doesn’t play baseball anymore, for which Ashley and I are extremely grateful.  In this part of the country baseball is more of a cult than a sport.  Now he just runs, both fast and far.  He’s fifteen.  These days his legs are a lot longer.  If you start looking at him from the ground up it takes you a few seconds to get his midsection.  His feet are bigger, too.  I know because our house is strewn with dozens of the most oddly designed, multi-colored Nike’s all either completely worn to the nub or on their way to becoming so.

Both Ashley and I were sprinters growing up.  I didn’t know her back then, but I can imagine her motoring toward the finish line at a decent clip.  I routinely remind my family that I never lost a race in my long, illustrious track career including 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade (I got out while I was on top).  We both ran the 100m, 200m as well as the 4x100m.  And yes, I ran the anchor leg.  In some ways it’s no surprise that Brody has taken to running.  But what neither of us saw coming was his leaning toward longer distances.  Brody is at his best in the 5k during Fall cross country season and the 1500m during Spring track season.  Ashley and I watch in amazement as he finds his kick toward the back end of these races.  He’s usually one of the first out of the gate, finding his way to the front of the pack early.  I commonly worry that he won’t have enough in the tank to close at the end.  I’m always wrong.  He has an ability that is equal parts physical and psychological that neither of us had.  His demeanor shifts at the ¾ mark of the race.  A rare determination takes him over.  His eyes grow more intense as his stride lengthens.  He digs down deep for something intangible in his gut that propels him forward, and whatever that intangible thing down there is gets stronger as the finish line gets closer.  It’s not uncommon for him to pass three to four runners in the last 200m of any given race.  I’ve never seen him collapse as he crosses the finish line.  He’ll throw his hands on his head to catch his breath and casually walk over the to the bright orange Gatorade cooler for a paper cup of water.  In cross country season he usually hangs at the finish line to slap the hand of his teammates as they cross behind him.  Ashley and I are commonly amazed at how unphased he is by the physical exertion he just endured.  A few weeks ago, while on a team cross country trip to Orlando, he and his friends ran thirteen miles for fun.  I asked him if he ate anything beforehand.

 “A banana.”

I followed up with “How ‘bout after?”

“A pear and a slushie.”

He then spent the afternoon walking around Universal Studios in the Central Florida humidity.  My immediate thought was…I would die.

The truth is there’s something about the act of running that feeds him in some mysterious way.  Sometimes after training I’ll ask him how it went.  “It was horrible,” he’ll say.  Then there’s an odd, silent sense of satisfaction and achievement that immediately follows.  His unspoken sentiment is…“I loved it.”

What is that?  What’s the thing down inside his belly that he accesses to move ahead in the challenge?  It’s not strength, at least not physical strength.  That’s muscle tissue and physicality.  It must deeper, the thing beneath strength that puts the muscle in motion.  It’s invisible, catalytic.  It gets things going and keeps them moving against all odds.  I don’t even think it’s will.  Will is self-determination, the assertion of what you already have toward completing the given objective.  What I’m talking about comes from something greater than self.  Here’s what I think, its joy.  Enduring joy.  Joy rooted in something beyond the power of self-determination.

Let’s look at our journey so far in The Hope Dare and John the Baptist and Peter Pan:  The Quest for Lightness of Heart…

In all the waiting, wishing, and wanting.  In every unmet desire.  In Zechariah and Elizabeth’s long season of a silent, childless home.  In the isolation of the pressures of the priesthood as they navigated their own broken hearts.  Even after Gabriel’s earth-altering announcement, when Zechariah’s silence was broken and the baby boy named John came.  When they were thrust into the mystery of raising that boy with a peculiar touch of God on his being that moved them all into the unknown.  When they released him from the covering of their home into the Judean wilderness to live the most unconventional life with even more unanswered questions.  And when the man John had his own moments of questioning… “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”   When the Spirit born zeal in his belly was confronted with Herod’s guillotine.  What was God growing in him with his BANGARANG?  In all of it, what was being born?  A joy rooted in a glorious unseen world that animates all things forward.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

It should be no surprise that all of this culminates with looking to Jesus.  What do we learn from the perfect Son of God?  That there is a joy that endures.  A deep and holy satisfaction in the assurance that all will be well.  Why?  Because we are not left to chance.  God is at the helm and is accomplishing something beyond beautiful motivated by perfect love.  In his most dire hour deep joy was his inspiration, destination, and sustenance. 

The theme is picked up in other New Testament writers.  It was James, the brother of Jesus who wrote…

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4 ESV)

What about Paul’s admonishment to the Philippians to “rejoice” always, penned from a Roman dungeon?

I have a hunch that the Christian life will continue to be wrought with both peaks and valleys.  For reasons unknown we will find ourselves in the dry, cracked riverbed desperate for a cup of cool water.  We will look at brazen sky and ask why?  And…at times the heavens will open, and we will see the alignment of God’s grand design and our most intimate desires.  In it all, God is growing something in us.  Something inside of us is shifting.  Our affections are being pulled from this world to the next.  The thing that increasingly pulls us forward is not the promise of more amiable circumstances in the here and now, or the illusion of a better version of the world.  It’s joy in God himself.

Reflecting on James’ words, a question rises to the surface:  What could you attain that would afford you absolute completion and the lack nothing?  Even in the midst of trials of all kinds? A question for Paul:  What could possibly motivate you to rejoice in Rome’s chains?  The answer…

Joy in God.

What was enough for Jesus the Son is enough for us.  Holy joy to inspire, sustain, and reward us.

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