It is the business of a sinful world to turn our eyes to everything but Jesus - to the more pressing, familiar-seeming things around us: "a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past."
Our amusements, entertainments and activities act as anesthetics. And like anesthetics, they block pain and pleasure - grief and joy - alike. We grow blind to the glory shining through cracks in a broken world, and in failing to know Him, we fail to know ourselves.
This is why I say that grief is not the opposite of joy. The opposite of joy is despair. Grief is a sign of a heart alive, of red blood pumping oxygen to the part of our soul that longs to see the un-reflected face of Jesus.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace
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