Want to Know Fullness of Joy?

Want to know fullness of joy? Want to take the fullest joy you've ever known and grow it and prolong it forever? So did Anselm back in the 11th century. And this is exactly what he was asking for when he prayed for knowledge of God:

I pray, O God, that I may know You and love You, so that I may rejoice in You. And if I cannot do so fully in this life may I progress gradually until it comes to fullness. Let the knowledge of You grow in me here, and there be made complete; let Your love grow in me here and there be made complete, so that here my joy may be great in hope, and there be complete in reality. Lord, by Your Son You command, or rather, counsel us to ask and you promise that we shall receive so that our ‘joy may be complete’ [John 16:24]. I ask, Lord, as You counsel through our admirable counsellor. May I receive what You promise through Your truth so that my ‘joy may be complete’ [John 16;24]. God of truth, I ask that I may receive so that my ‘joy may be complete’ [John 16:24]. Until then let my mind meditate on it, let my tongue speak of it, let my heart love it, let my mouth preach it. Let my soul hunger for it, let my flesh thirst for it, my whole being desire it, until I enter into the ‘joy of the Lord’ [Matthew 25:21], who is God, Three in One, ‘blessed forever. Amen’ [Romans 1:25].  (St. Anselm, Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, edited by Brian Davies and GR Evans, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 103-04.)

There's more joy in knowing God now than anything else.

Anselm had come to realize that there was more joy than he could ever have imagined in knowing God and His Son Jesus whom He sent into the world. He had discovered a joy so big that when his heart, mind, soul, and whole self was filled with it there was still immeasurably joy more left. It was a joy so big that it could not fully enter into humans--but humans could fully enter into it.

But this joy is far out-shined by the eternal joy that will come when we're finally in God's presence forever and ever. 

Yet this joy that Anselm discovered he had already discovered, and since he understood that there is more joy awaiting us than anyone could imagine, whatever this joy he had discovered was, it wasn't as great as the joy promised to us. This was the joy Anselm kept praying to find--bigger than big and fuller than full. Complete, perfect, overwhelming joy. The joy we'll know when we finally live forever and ever in the presence of God.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24-25)