Run My Course With Even Joy

I have a CD of Charles Wesley's hymns that I listen to almost every day in my office.  It features 21 different hymns sung beautifully by The Choral Arts Society of Washington Chamber Singers.  Some are familiar to almost any regular churchgoer ("O, For A Thousand Tongues to Sing"; "Love, Divine, All Loves Excelling"; "Christ the Lord is Risen Today") while others are perhaps less well known ("O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done"; ""Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies.")  Depending on what else is happening around me, a phrase or line may stick in my mind and become an accompaniment to my daily work, and I have learned to pay attention to that and spend some time meditating on it.

Recently, I have found my thoughts circling around repeatedly to the same line in Charles Wesley's hymn of commitment to Christian service and discipleship, "Forth in Thy Name."   According to one of United Methodism's great Charles Wesley scholars, the Rev. S T Kimbrough Jr.,“Charles Wesley was deeply concerned that the attitudes with which we approach the endeavors of each day reflect our Christian posture and character.” (https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-forth-in-thy-name-o-lord)

Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go, 
my daily labor to pursue; 
thee, only thee, resolved to know 
in all I think or speak or do. 

The task thy wisdom hath assigned, 
O let me cheerfully fulfill; 
in all my works thy presence find, 
and prove thy good and perfect will. 

Thee may I set at my right hand, 
whose eyes mine in-most substance see, 
and labor on at thy command, 
and offer all my works to thee. 

For thee delightfully employ 
what e'er thy bounteous grace hath given; 
and run my course with even joy, 
and closely walk with thee to heaven. 

The line that keeps reverberating in my mind is the penultimate line of the last verse -- "and run my course with even joy" -- possibly because there are at least two possible ways to interpret it.  One is to understand it as stating that it is possible to "run one's course" of daily work with joy because of God's grace so bountifully given.  A second interpretation is to say that one can approach one's "course" with even joy rather than with jagged emotions that range from ecstasy to despair and back again.  The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course, which is part of the beauty and complexity of delving into a Wesley hymn.

I am reminded of the prayer of confession from Word and Table in the United Methodist Hymnal, particularly the line that pleads: "Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord."  Joyful, not grim-faced and dutiful, but joyful obedience!  The joy and happiness found in living into the will of Christ is a frequent theme of the Wesleys'.  In his sermon "The Way to the Kingdom," John Wesley preached, "Holiness and happiness, joined in one, are sometimes styled, in the inspired writings, 'the kingdom of God,'" and in another sermon entitled ("Satan's Devices") he exhorts the hearer: "Thus, being filled with all peace and joy in believing, press on, in the peace and joy of faith to the renewal of thy whole soul in the image of him that created thee!"

This emphasis on joy as integral to the Christian life is antithetical to the caricature that many have of the sour-faced Christian who never has fun and doesn't want anyone else to have any, either, and that is, well, sad.  Joy should be one of the first characteristics of any Christ-follower, a joy rooted in the assurance of God's love and grace, for all of us.  It is, after all, one of the first fruits of the Spirit to be mentioned in Galatians!

So I wonder.  How might you and I run our "course with even joy" in such a way that our lives attract rather than repel others from the Jesus-life?  As we pursue our daily work and recreation, how are we illustrating that "bounteous grace?"  I invite you to think of this, perhaps as you sing or pray this lovely hymn, and may joy fill your heart and your relationships as you seek to walk as Christ walked!