Joy

Over the past year of my life I have learned a lot about walking with God and what it means to have authentic intimacy with Him. It's been an amazing experience and one I hope and believe will continue for the rest of my life. Lately, however, I've felt God guiding me to slow down on learning new things and start finding life in what He has already shown me. A few weeks back I was praying and God spoke to me clearer than I am usually able to hear. His message to me was simple: "Remember that life is the goal." I wrote it in my journal and I've spent the last few weeks turning that over in my head. I am only at the beginning of exploring that message in my life but I want to begin sharing what I've learned. For this post, I want to talk about what I believe is one of the things at the heart of true life in Christ: joy.

As I've thought about joy recently I've realized just how badly I've misconceived it. I tend to think of joy as something small, a nice bonus at the end of day but not an essential part of the Christian life. But it has become clear to me that my view of joy could not be further from God's. When I open the Bible and read in Nehemiah 8 "The joy of the Lord is your strength" I can see plain as day the disconnect between my personal philosophy and God's truth. To God joy is not optional; it is essential.

Let's consider that verse again. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." I think that's the sort of verse we tend to gloss over and treat as an empty platitude. It seems like a nice thought but do we ever stop and think of all that it implies? If our strength is directly tied to and related to our joy, then if we are not joyful we are setting ourselves up as easy targets for the enemy and the battle for our hearts is lost. Joy is not a platitude; it is a strategy. Joy is not happy thoughts; it is a weapon. If we truly put this verse, with all it's implications, into practice it would start a revolution.

I think part of the struggle I have with joy comes from my confusing it with two things that sound similar but are actually quite different: happiness and pleasure. Let's start with pleasure. To say, "I shall spend my life being joyful" could be easily confused with saying "I will spend my life seeking pleasure." Now I do not believe pleasure is wrong. In fact, I believe God intends for us to have a great deal of it. But it does not take a deep psychoanalysis to realize that we do not experience pleasure every moment of the day. Pleasure exists at the circumference, joy is at the center. Pleasure demands external circumstances be put right. Joy is indifferent.

Let me illustrate this with a silly but, I hope, helpful example. When I went to see The Dark Knight I experienced pleasure. If Annie decided that tonight we are going to go see Mama Mia I doubt I would find very much pleasure in the experience. But I could find joy in it. I could find joy in spending time with my wife and in doing something that brings her pleasure. My joy need not be affected by external circumstances.

Happiness is even more difficult to separate because it is not entirely external. It does exist at a level deeper than pleasure but clearly not at the level of joy. I know this because Isaiah speaks of The Messiah as a man of sorrows. Yet if the joy of the Lord is our strength, Jesus must have been very joyful indeed since He was spiritually the strongest man to ever live. Therefore, joy must go beyond mere emotion. In this way it is like contentment. To be content does not mean to be satisfied. I doubt Paul was satisfied with the weather conditions during his shipwrecks but he was content in all circumstances (more on contentment another time).

Once we realize that joy is neither pleasure nor happiness we begin to see just how powerful it really is. If joy is not affected by either physical, external circumstances or by emotions then it would seem to be untouchable. And if we found it, if our hearts were transformed so that they were truly joyful, we also would be untouchable. I do not mean untouchable in a way that is closed off and defensive but in a way that is able to be open and loving because we are no longer dependent on pleasure and happiness to take the place of joy in our lives. This is why the verse specifies the joy of the Lord. Clearly there is something supernatural about this. The only way to get there is through relationship with God and through being transformed by Him. This is also why I say that truly living that verse could start a revolution. To find this level of joy would leave no part of our lives untouched.

I believe a word of caution is needed here. The contemporary church is not very fond of talking about the cost of following Christ but it exists nonetheless. I believe there is also a cost to finding true joy. To become untouchable is to become hated. To become truly alive in Christ, even in just one area such as joy, is to become the world's enemy. I cannot be more specific because I am still so far away from real joy and life in my own walk but the stories of martyrs are easy to find. Even in a "tolerant" society such as ours, the cost may not be death but it will still exist. Jesus promised this. When He said He came with us a sword, this is at least part of what He meant.

But I believe it's worth it. This place of joy is where I want to go and I believe it is where God is leading me. It's time to move beyond platitudes and happy thoughts. Joy matters and it is worth pursuing.