The Discipline of Joy

Lately I've found myself complaining of that sneakiest of ailments - 'a lack of joy'. Nothing big or dramatic - I watch the news and feel dreadful for complaining - just that old mundane Monday feeling. But as I was praying (or just complaining by another name) with my wife this morning, God surprised me. He kind of suggested that maybe my joy was my own responsibility. Bit of a spanner in the works of my morning moan, right?

But I guess he is right. (I know he always is.)

He reminded me that there are two similar concepts - which for ease of reference I will call happiness and joy. External things can make you happy - a good curry, a great movie or success at work. But we know that happiness is time-limited. It is also based on our immediate pleasure. Joy, on the other hand, is awakened within you - it is internal, not necessarily rooted in external circumstances. In fact joy, unlike happiness, can endure in the face of negative circumstances. And joy is a discipline. At least partly.

Joy is a discipline. Happiness is a feeling. Often they overlap, and we experience them simultaneously. Often the discipline of internal joy will lead to the experience of external happiness. Sometimes experiences of external happiness can be a part of the building up of joy internally. But they are distinct.

Joy is intrinsically connected to your understanding of the world around you. The level of joy that underpins your life is dependant on what you believe about life. If you are a fortuitous combination of molecules with no purpose but the perpetuation of your species, then what cause (or point) is there for joy? If you are religious and you believe in a deity who is a bully, a Scrooge who grudges all pleasure and piles on burdens at every turn, whose only emotion is disappointment and wrath, then you won't take much joy in life.

But if you believe certain other things about your life, your existence, and the nature of God, certain attitudes and logical responses to those beliefs manifest in a different way of looking at the world, which leads to joy. Joy might be experiential, but it comes from a discipline of remembering.

All the way through the Old Testament the message of God is to REMEMBER. Remember who God is. Remember what he did and therefore what he does. Remember how he provided, how he rescued, how he forgave. And so remember that God will provide, he will rescue, and he will forgive. My history teacher used to say that those who fail to study the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. I would say that those who forget God's goodness in the past are doomed to live a pretty depressing future!

If we operate in a lifestyle of remembrance, we will always have in mind who God is and what God does, and so we will never look at our circumstances as the world does, ever again. In that way, joy is one of the fruits of the spirit: something that flows organically from a life surrendered to God.

It doesn't mean an inability to experience suffering: a laughable refusal to recognise the facts of life. But it does mean a deeper joy that allows you to smile in the midst of sadness, to worship in the midst of grief, and to see light when all around is dark. As Nehemiah said 'The joy of The Lord is our strength'.

It's clear in the 'joy in suffering' passages that joy comes not from refusing to recognise the truth, but from a recognition of the whole truth. If Paul and James didn't experience it as suffering, would they have referred to it as suffering or trials or tribulations? Of course they experienced the pain of it! But they had joy because they knew God was still God, he was good, and he was at work in the midst of the pain.

If you are lacking joy, you have forgotten something about God. When I lack joy, it is probably because I have forgotten to remember. I have forgotten to remember all of the times that God has brought me through difficult times, changing me for the better in the process. How God has rescued me, sometimes gradually, sometimes dramatically, from stickier situations. In a more general sense, it is probably because I have forgotten just how ridiculously loved I am by God.

I live for a God who spared no sacrifice to rescue me, and has given me his word that he is with me always. I live for a God who fills my life with good things, if only I'll open my eyes and see them. A God who works all things together for my good, turning mourning to dancing, darkness to light, and tears to joy. God hides beauty and opportunity in every day, and he does nothing by mistake. That means that today is a day mapped out for me by a God who loves me.

And when I remember that, joy doesn't seem so difficult. Even on a Monday!