Jeremiah 31:13 – One-Ingredient Joy

“Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance,
And the young men and the old, together;
For I will turn their mourning to joy,
Will comfort them,
And make them rejoice rather than sorrow. Jeremiah 31:13, New King James Version

She was her usual, effervescent self. Our foster child neared her first birthday as fascinated with life as ever. I remember writing in my constant chronicle on social media that she rejoiced because it was Tuesday.

That was her last day with us. She didn't know, but we did, with the awful gift of foreknowledge. Social services had other plans to which she was oblivious. Her joy continued, constant, the very essence of child -like faith.

I consider that as I think over Jeremiah 31:13. Our little one, whom I still don't name in print out of respect for social services policy, was completely engulfed in life's dance. God said His grace was such that the young would be, that they would be able to completely enjoy what they were doing without a sense of foreboding. Good for them, but what about the rest of us? Who know a little too much now to dance with abandon?

Joy in God sweeps us up also. The young and the old rejoice together. Even those who have taken up the mourning habit, perhaps with good reason, will experience real joy we thought out of reach. How? God is straightforward. I will turn their mourning into joy, will comfort them and make them, Maker that He still is, rejoice rather than sorrow.

Joy, then, is not the purview of the young and unaware. It is not, even, in the context of Jeremiah 31, the result of a recipe of recalling certain redemptive experiences. God can use either the exuberance of youth or the song of particular experiences with Him, but these are not the essential ingredient in producing real joy. He is.

He is in the moment. Joy is, as CS Lewis put it according to Chris Tiegreen's Feeling Like God, "the serious business of Heaven." "Joy is," Tiegreen insists even more pervasively, "room temperature whenever God is in the room."

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