https://odb.org/2026/05/20/the-fountain-of-joy
1 Corinthians 13:8–13 (NIV): 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Do you ever long for something you see glimpses of but can’t quite grasp? C. S. Lewis longed for joy. He wrote, “Our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is . . . the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be . . . the healing of that old ache. . . . The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy.” Lewis writes of the joy we’ll experience in full when we see Jesus face-to-face. As believers in Jesus, we have the joy of Christ through our relationship with Him and the work of His Spirit inside us. But sadly our joy is hampered by sin and death, the forces of evil, and the world’s brokenness. (Alyson Kieda, Our Daily Bread 19th May 2026)
Because of the brokenness brought by sin to the world, the world has become imperfect. In fact, things are breaking down, for example, with the depleting ozone layer, we will experience global warming and havoc in weather patterns locally and across the globe. Nature is set in a certain sequence and pattern as a creation of God. If it is altered, there could be severe consequences to our way of life.
Even as human beings progress over time, we encounter issues that are alien to our forefathers. We move much faster nowadays, flying from one end of the world to another. As a result, we experience jet lag. Basically due to our body biologically adapting to different timezones. Not an issue faced by people of old as they travel by ship for days and months to transverse large distances.
The bends or decompression sickness came about because divers use specialised equipment to dive deeper into the ocean and if they surfaced too quickly, the mixture of the gasses used will result in air bubbles being trapped in their blood stream, causing problems that may lead to death. The recent deaths of a group of Italian divers exploring underwater caves in the Maldives at 55m is a case in point. They went so deep in such a dangerous environment (caves) but without specialised equipment (for example, it is believed they only had one “deco bottle” with them). The real tragedy is that one Maldivian navy diver died while searching for their bodies. In the end, they brought in specialised Finnish divers to successfully find and recover the bodies. However, if anyone dives into deeper waters using just the air we breathe at the surface, the bends will not occur even if we were to surface immediately.
Yet in the midst of all these human advancements and perils that come with them, we get a glimpse or glimpses of what it will be at the end of times. In coping with the challenges of modern life, God in His grace sometimes intervenes and helps us out. Besides lessening the impact of bad decisions we made (as mentioned in one of my writings), Jesus sometimes lead us to avoid certain perils that plague modern living. For example, on Monday, I traveled later into the city center by LRT for a meeting because we had to run an errand. If I had taken the train any earlier, I would have been caught out by the chaos at rush hour that morning – one train broke down at the Kelana Jaya station blocking the tracks.
As a believer living in 2026, we experience things not even seen by people living in the 14th century or during the time of the Acts of the Apostles. Human nature or challenges (like envy, disunity, greed, false teachers etc) may be similar throughout the ages, but the reality what we actually face day to day have changed dramatically over the centuries. Yet the God we worship is the same yesterday, today and forevermore! We get glimpses of His glory but we constantly experience His grace and mercy, and the wisdom and discernment of the Holy Spirit. One day, the perfect world where there will no longer be evil, tears and death will come as revealed and promised to us in Revelation 21. Don’t ever give up on that hope of glory even as we face the struggles of modern living day by day! Perfection will come one day to replace the brokenness in the world!
Ronnie's Thoughts 