Joy
Everyone pursues happiness. It is one of life’s great endeavors. Joy is not a pursuit, but a gift. It is one of the great promises of the New Testament. Joy is not supposed to be a stranger, but a constant companion. Life does not have to be good for it to be present. It is our inheritance even in the worst of times. In this article, we will talk about how we can open our hearts and let joy in.
Science recognizes the difference between joy and happiness. Dr. Daniel Gilbert has done extensive research on this subject. He found happiness operates through the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is what the body uses to excite us or to prepare us for a fight-or-flight response to danger. Joy operates through the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms us down and is associated with peace and rest. This difference is perhaps why we talk about tears of joy but not tears of happiness. Joy can make us cry. Happiness cannot. Gilbert discovered happiness replaces pain, and joy embraces it.
There is a lot of research about happiness, but very little about joy. Dr. Gilbert explains happiness is predictable. That is why it is so easy to study. Joy is not so tame. It can show up in unhappy times. For example, you get that piece of chocolate cake you have been craving, and it makes you happy. Joy can show up when there is no chocolate cake to be had.
We are all dying to know, can money buy happiness? We might think not, but that is not entirely true. It can make us happy, but its power to do so is limited. Gilbert’s research showed a sizeable difference between the happiness of someone who makes $5,000 a year and someone who makes $50,000 a year. However, there was little difference between someone who makes $50,000 a year and someone who makes $5,000,000 a year. Maybe winning the lotto won’t make us happy after all! Yet can money give us joy? Here is the great paradox: only when we give it away.
Happiness is tied to having and not having. It depends on our circumstances. If we have what we need and what we want, we will be happy. At least that is the theory. Happiness comes when life is good but leaves when life is bad. Joy can show up at the worst of times and in the most undesirable places. So, where does it come from if not from a good life?
In His presence is fulness of joy. (Psalm 16:11)
Paul speaks of joy as a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). David, in the Psalms, equates joy with God’s presence. In John’s gospel, Jesus talks about Himself as the source of joy (John 15:11). Thus, happiness is a favorable circumstance; joy is a person, the Person of Jesus Christ. Where there is togetherness with God, joy happens. Christ dwells in us and we in Him, so there is always the potential for joy, no matter the circumstances. Happiness comes and goes, but joy is always right beside us.
Happiness is tied to finite things, joy to the infinite. In the Old Covenant, God promised His people happiness if they obeyed the Law. In Deuteronomy 28, God lists the blessings He would give those who kept Torah. Every one of them is finite. God promised to give His people what they wanted if they obeyed, and He threatened to take away their happiness if they disobeyed. Happiness and unhappiness were the great motivators of the Old Covenant.
In the New Testament, joy takes priority over happiness. The Old Covenant promise was a happy dwelling. Ours is a Person who dwells within us. Their happiness came from the external and the finite. Our joy comes from the Infinite One who dwells within. They earned their blessings. Ours is a gift.
So many Christians stumble because they try to live in the Old Covenant relationship with God with its focus on behavior and finite things. God becomes the one who makes us happy by giving us what we want and taking away what we don’t want. Though God is infinite, the emphasis of our relationship becomes the finite.
The New Covenant relationship focuses on the infinite, and God’s favor is something we perceive, not something we achieve. Our joy comes from union with Christ. Ironically, we often possess God’s gift through the loss of happiness.
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials… (James 1:2)
James associates joy with trials. His words sound insane to world focused on happiness. How can tribulation and joy be related? Under the Old Covenant paradigm, when God is mad at us, He takes away our happiness and gives us unhappiness instead. If there is no finite blessing, we assume God has forsaken us. This old paradigm operates through reward, punishment, and fear.
Everything changes in the New Covenant, including our perspective on suffering. It is no longer punishment or something to be feared. James ties tribulation to joy. Paul connects suffering with glory and revelation. What an astonishing difference! When the storm comes, we see God amid the storm. He reveals Himself and in this unveiling is boundless joy.
If God takes away our happiness or withholds what we reckon we need to be happy, it is not because He is mad at us. He does so to give us joy! Happiness comes from finite things, and finite things can be shaken, lost, or taken away. Eternal things remain. They are always so. God shakes the finite to help us let go of the finite measures of life for an infinite measure of life… Himself.
Where there is no finite glory, God unveils infinite glory. When life looks empty, we have reached the perfect place to comprehend what it means to be full. Surprisingly, when we give up the pursuit of happiness, we meet joy. We no longer define life through good and bad circumstances or having and not having. Our life becomes Christ. Our togetherness with Him is our completion, and we need nothing more to be full. Togetherness with Christ is always so, but we often comprehend it best when happiness has departed.
Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; (1 Peter 1:13) (1)
Suffering is a mystery. To those whose eyes are fixed on happiness, it has no meaning. If we measure life by good and bad, God will be a mystery as well. When we turn our eyes from the finite to the infinite, a great unveiling takes place. Suffering is redefined just as it was with James and Paul. It becomes a place to meet God. God shakes the finite not to punish us, but to help us find an infinite measure of who we are and what we have. If we see suffering as a place of unveiling, we really can count it all joy.
Dr. Gilbert said happiness displaces pain. Joy embraces it. Somehow, embracing our misery weakens its grip on us. When my kids call me about their problems, I am the typical dad. I try to fix things. Yet, when I have nothing to give, I often tell them to accept their unhappiness. It is okay to be miserable and realizing this can give us a measure of peace.
Yet joy doesn’t just embrace pain. It transcends it. Our togetherness with Christ is higher than any pain we are suffering. No tribulation can break our tie to Christ. Happiness is fickle. Where are you happiness? You never call. You never write! Joy is always present. We need only open the eyes of our heart.
To understand God, we must know He is far more interested in joy than happiness. In Jesus’s day, they believed the Messiah would bring back happiness. The Romans had stolen it. They expected the Messiah to get rid of what they didn’t want and give them what they wanted. Sound familiar? Many still have this concept of the Messiah today.
Jesus came to give His people a joy that transcends the good and bad of life. He came to give us God, and it is His gift that defines us and completes us. The purpose of redemption is not happiness but togetherness, and the fruit of that union is joy. We can know His joy even when the Romans are in town. That is transcendence, the place we meet joy.
(1) Some say this passage has an eschatological context. Their hope was in Christ’s return, but I think it also has an everyday application. There is enormous grace whenever Christ reveals His glory.
