There is nothing like watching someone experience salvation joy. Last week, a young coach stopped by our office. His face glowed, he smiled ear to ear, and there was an inner light.

I invited him to sit with us at the staff meeting. “What is going on with you?” I asked. He said he had not grown up with any kind of faith and began to be curious during the existential crisis of Covid to ask important life questions, “Why am I here, is there a God, why does life matter?”

At camp in Alaska, he rekindled his curiosity about faith and specifically witnessed the inner joy of other coaches. What did they have?

As a disciplined and successful person, he could self-generate a positive attitude and life perspective but what the other coaches had was something different, something that overflowed from some external source that wasn’t manufactured. 

He told us after camp that he dedicated his life to Christ and feels overawed by the peace and joy of this new relationship. 

The etymology of the word salvation is beautiful. It originates from the idea to save but also to rescue and to heal. It also encompasses the emotions connected to this experience—a feeling of joy having been healed, saved, and rescued. 

How easily words like salvation become a trigger of repugnance for those who have either a bad experience or no curiosity. It is one of the many beautiful words that has become very cumbersome. 

Yet, this coach is a walking representation of the power of this word. Like all revolutionary experiences, there is a change at the metaphysical level, a change that is evident to all who encounter us. Those who met my dad or mom before their experience with salvation and saw them afterward could verify a complete and tangible change. 

What about you? Where are you on your journey? Is your life marked by inner peace and joy regardless of your circumstances? Are you manufacturing your energy for the day or receiving something beyond the natural? Where do you find healing and rescue?

What would salvation joy mean for your life?

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

-Psalm 51:10-12