Two red finches dance around a bird feeder in my front window, their crimson wings painting the morning air. Beyond them, the rising sun sends golden light dripping through the leaves of my crabapple tree to pool in patches on the front lawn. A few towering cedars stand sentinel above. They nod their hoary heads in time with the silent breeze as if to give their approval to the sunrise. And nearer than all these, twin baby girls sit smiling, full of milk and flexing their newfound voices in infant glee. The scene is soaked in pleasures and fills my heart with a wild joy.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience and have wondered, as I did, whether this kind of scene makes God happy. Does he enjoy this lovely slice of creation with the same delight I do? Does he actually like what he has made? If we can answer those questions, not only will we gain insight into the fathomless gladness of our God, but we will also be better equipped to engage with God’s world as he does.

Trinitarian Fullness

To begin, yes, God delights in his creation! The Lord rejoices in the works of his hands, from the red finch to the rising sun to the little girls made in his image (Psalm 104:31). How could it be otherwise? God is no idolator, and so God is foremost in his own affections. From all eternity, the Father and Son have perfectly delighted in one another by the Spirit. This unfathomable abundance of life and love, beauty and joy is his Trinitarian fullness. And creation externally expresses some of this internal fullness.

Everything that is not God makes God’s divine nature and power visible (Romans 1:20). The world with a deafening voice declares the glory (Psalm 19:1). So, if God loves himself perfectly, how could he not take pleasure in his creation? Jonathan Edwards explains, “As he delights in his own light, he must delight in every beam of that light” (God’s Passion for His Glory, 157). To do otherwise would demonstrate a defect in his love.

Furthermore, no one can force God to do anything. He is the freest and happiest being imaginable. Therefore, if things exist (and they do), they exist because God is satisfied that they should be. As someone once observed, if God wanted to erase the universe, he wouldn’t have to do anything. He’d have to stop doing something. You exist, trees exist, stars exist, mosquitoes exist because it is God’s present pleasure to make it so. To riff on G.K. Chesterton, creation is the continual, exuberant encore of a God who delights in all that he has made. The sun rises each morning because God gives it a daily bravo.

Divine Hedonics

For Christian Hedonists, God’s happiness in creation comes as no surprise. But can we say more? Can we, as with fine wine, discern the different hints, flavors, and bright undertones of God’s pleasure in creation? Indeed, we can. In an analogous way, our human joys as subcreators give us a glimpse of God’s joys as Creator. So, what specific kinds of pleasure does God enjoy in his creation?

1. The Pleasure of an Artist

I have a juniper bonsai tree sitting on my back porch. I’ve cultivated — the correct term is “trained” — that tiny tree for years to fit the aesthetic standards of bonsai. It came home with me from the hardware store a wild bush, untrained, uncultivated, and unbalanced. But now it reveals a delightful symmetry — one long, graceful branch on the left harmonizing with two short ones on the right and topped with a tampering crown. I have invested much time, thought, and creative effort to make that bonsai tree beautiful. It is (even if not a great one) a work of art.

All trees are bonsai trees. God “trains” every tree on the planet. In my limited way, I cultivate my little tree with care and attention, but much lies outside my artistic control. Not so with God. He is not only exhaustively sovereign; he is exhaustively artistic. Every elm and ash, each birch and oak, the rowans, maples, poplars, and palms, the innumerable variety of trees — and yes, the crabapple in my front yard — are all God’s bonsais.

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