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Joy Entries in Joy (4)
Not Happiness: Joy
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 02:54PM 
Why would we trade the everlasting for a handful of vapor? Why would we drink an imitation when the true fountain flows nearby?
Yet we do. Subtly, unaware, we seek happiness—even though joy is within reach, every day.
God save me from the pursuit of happiness and deliver me into the place of joy. Joy is one third of God’s kingdom (Romans 14:17). Joy is number two on the hit parade of Spirit-fruit (Galatians 5: 22-23) – there’s never a law against joy. Joy can make you sell everything you have in order to gain everlasting treasure (Matthew 13:44). And even though some translations blunder into using the word happiness, joy is the Master’s reward (Matthew 25:21).
It’s a sucker’s bargain: we’re offered happiness cheap, but joy awaits, an everlasting gift unavailable at any price. Happiness is “As Seen on TV”; joy is finding an actual pub where everyone does, indeed, know your name. Happiness is the echo of laughter; joy is the source of all merriment. Happiness is now and me, me, me; joy is forever, and for all of us.
Beware of modern happy-talk, the kind that tells us to find our own happy-place. All this talk about self-fulfillment causes me to ask whether Jesus felt “fulfilled” as he hung on the cross; the Biblical witness tells us he despised the shame and endured the pain—all for the joy set before him. Indeed, on the very night he faced betrayal, Jesus wasn’t into happy-talk: he was all about joy.
Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. (John 16:20-24)
Search these things out, friends. Take an inventory of joy. Joy brings forth songs from prison; joy is the secret keep of the insulted, the persecuted, and the subjects of vicious lies. The glory of God inhabits joy. Joy is the stuff of resurrection. Joy is the oil of anointing, both for the king, and his subjects.
And we are the children of joy.
Meditation: In Defense of the Hopelessly Happy
Monday, December 3, 2012 at 10:07AM 
When the Preacher, who confined himself to matters under the sun, intoned, “with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief,” he forever linked the idea that serious people were sad because disillusionment is the only choice of the enlightened. Camus, Satre, Voltaire (anyone from France, really) and most great thinkers have fallen in line with the fallen king of Israel. The wisdom of the wise is to expect disappointment, anticipate disaster, and gainsay anyone who prefers sunrise to sunset.
The worldly-wise require a dreary realism for club membership. The doorman greets the cynic, but keeps the hopeful behind the velvet rope. Happy people are hopeless, they say: hopelessly idealistic and hopelessly romantic.
In fact, the exact opposite is true: happy people are the hope-filled, the joy saturated, the ones so full of the Spirit he oozes out of them. The surprising testimony of the scripture, and the Lord of the scripture, is that history has a destination of unspeakable joy.
Even when we look cold-hard at the suffering of a desperate world, we can see the text of God super-imposed on the landscape, written with a feather-touch: “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” This week I invite you to meditate with me on the fruit of the Spirit, those nine attributes I can never seem to remember in order: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Discover again with me that “serious” is not a fruit of the Spirit.
The shipwrecked and beaten apostle reminds us, “against such things there is no law.” They cannot be legislated into existence, nor regulated out. They can only be lived into. They can only be discovered as the natural outgrowth of a life lived in concert with the Great Creator, the Feast-throwing Father, the one who invites us, “enter into the joy of your Master.”
Monday's Meditation: Can We Choose Our Emotions?
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 09:27AM I’ve always been intrigued when the scriptures command an emotion:
- Let the priests, the Lord's ministers,weep between the porch and the altar (Joel 2:17)
- Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)
- Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)
Some events--and the emotions that go with them--are beyond our control: unexpected loss, good news beyond all expectation, hurt inflicted from a loved-one. Yet in the everyday-ness of living, I believe that our emotions are largely the result of our habitual thoughts. If we could discern the map of our heart and mind, I suspect we would discover the well-worn pathways of our thinking and feeling. Expressed another way, we train ourselves to think and feel in certain predictable ways.
(This is where I should cite studies from the Journal of Psychiatric Studies or some such authoritative-sounding publication, but no: I’m just going to share what I’ve observed about myself and others during my few decades of living.)
I believe the reason we find repeated exhortations in the scripture to think and feels certain ways is because God has given us the capacity to rule our thoughts and emotions. Consider his very telling exchange between God and Cain, just before Cain chose to murder his brother:
“Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4: 6-7)
Genesis, the book of origins, tells us the story of our first encounter with anger, jealously, and feelings of rejection. Contained in this story is revelation about our own psyche: we are responsible for our emotions, and each of us has been given the capacity to choose a healthy emotional response. In this story are the seeds of hope for a fallen world: God comes to us in our anger or hurt, and encourages us to choose wisely. He believes in us more than we believe in ourselves.
Is there any better meditation for the week of Thanksgiving? Is is possible that we can redirect the pathways of our heart? If we give ourselves time and space in this holiday, I believe we will hear the voice of our Father encouraging us, “choose thanksgiving--it’s the best thing for you.”
Monday's Meditation: An Invitation to Joy
Monday, June 7, 2010 at 12:02AM My friend Adam Russell reminds me from time to time that “serious” is not a fruit of the Spirit. I don’t think he has anything against "serious," it's just not evidence that God is at work. But joy is.
Joy is a curious thing: fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), one of the three building-blocks of God’s Kingdom (Romans 14:17), a personal gift from Jesus himself (John 15, 16, & 17) and a discipline commanded of every follower of Jesus (I Thessalonians 5:16). Joy is the overflow of the Life of God, a wellspring of the presence of the Holy Spirit. David, the shepherd King of Israel, caught a glimpse of divine joy the day God’s presence entered Jersusalem:
“Splendor and majesty are before Him, strength and joy in his dwelling place.” (I Chronicles 16: 27)I imagine that among all the manifestations of the throne room of God Almighty, along with burning holiness, peals of thunder and the voice of many waters--there is joy. Joy eternal. Joy unworldly. Joy forever.
Joy springs up in the most unusual places: in the life of a homeless dumpster-diver who regularly attended my church; in the tears of a woman holding her baby in the first moments of life; in the thrill of watching loved ones receive their just reward; and in the heart of Jesus even as he hung in naked agony on a Roman instrument of torture:
“Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2)Happiness is a reflex of circumstances, Joy flows never-ending from the wellspring of faith. If you’re looking for a meditation this week (and you are, aren’t you?), may I suggest you ask the Father about joy? It’s worth pondering all week long: God himself dwells in joy. God himself dispenses joy. God himself commands joy. What Student of Jesus could be without it? Seriously--is there such a thing as a disciple without joy?
He dwells in joy, he dispenses joy, and he invites the faithful to enter into his joy. Today. This week: he has measured out joy just for you.