A Dream

One morning I had a dream. I was in a place full of people walking back and forth, like at a fairground. Sitting with a small group of teenagers at a table inside a booth, I asked an intellectually-challenged girl sitting next to me, “Are you happy?” She did not know how to answer me. I then told her that I was happy because Jesus loves me. Repeating my words, she said that she was happy because Jesus loves her. At that point, all the teenagers at the table began to say the same thing and laugh joyfully.

Amid our heartfelt laughter, I said, “Jesus loves me first, then He loves you.” They all looked at me puzzled. Then I pointed at them, one by one, and said, “Jesus loves you first, then He loves others.” Everyone began saying the same thing, and our table was so filled with joy that other people pulled up chairs to join our table. Then I woke up.

As I meditated on the dream, I realized that the joy we shared came from knowing that Jesus loves us. It’s a type of joy that cannot be known only by our intellect. It comes from within our heart. In my dream, when I told the intellectually-challenged girl that I was happy because Jesus loves me, she easily got it. She experienced it, and her joy was contagious, so much so that the other teenagers at the table got it too. That doesn’t mean that intellectual people cannot be joyful. Real joy comes when we open our heart to receive Jesus’ love, and then the experience of joy follows.

Knowing God’s Love Firsthand

Joy comes when we experience God’s love firsthand. When I was a youth, I read J. I. Packer’s book Knowing God. As Dr. Packer described God’s greatness in relation to the vast universe, I felt so small. I wondered whether God knew me, a tiny young lady amid six million people in our city—and our city was so small that it was not even a dot on a world map! Did God really know me—even my name?

God knows us intimately and loves us because He created us.

“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139:13–14).

God Loves All People

One Saturday morning I brought my Bible and my prayer journal to Legacy Park, close to where I live. Sitting in view of the Trinity River, I meditated on God’s love for me. Looking across the river to the tall, green trees on the other side of the riverbank and the beautiful blue sky above, I thanked God for His love for me. In that moment, I felt God was allowing me to feel His love for all the people in the world. I was overwhelmed by His intense love for the world.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

After that experience, I began to look at people differently. No matter a person’s intellect, color of their skin, their age, or their gender, God loves them dearly, so I can love them too. When we know that Jesus loves us and we experience it firsthand, then our joy will be contagious because it flows out of our innermost being. People will be attracted to our joy.

A Song

After I woke up from my dream, the chorus of the song, “At the Cross,” kept ringing in my heart. It goes like this:

At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light,

And the burden of my heart rolled away.

It was there by faith, I received my sight,

And now I am happy all the day.

The song reminded me that it is because of the cross that we are “happy all the day.” Jesus Christ, God’s Son, came to earth as a man, died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, and rose again to give us new life in Him. The Bible tells us that we can enter into this new life by God’s grace through our faith in His Son.

“For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

When we believe in Jesus with our whole heart, we experience His great love. Thus, we become His agents to spread His love and joy wherever we go.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

Dr. Sabrina Li is a Christian educator, an author, and a church musician.