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Joy is Essential

Joy, an Experience of God

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This is the first post in a series entitled Rhythms of Joy.

In this series we’ll explore why joy is important, how joy fits into suffering, what kills our joy and how to experience joy.

Joy, an Experience of God

Joy is important. It’s not just a nice to have part of our lives.

Joy is an experience of God’s nearness.

Joy is commanded.

Having joy is a mark of being a follower of Jesus Christ.

Our joy in God brings Him glory.

Joy can easily be confused with happiness and sometimes they intersect, resulting in good feelings. Happiness is tied to happenings, but joy is much deeper.

The difference between happiness and joy might be illustrated by the difference between a ship and a submarine in a sea storm. The status of the ship is totally dependent upon the waves and the condition of the sea.

Whereas a submarine can travel several hundred yards below a hurricane and not be affected.

Since God is the source and fullness of all joy, [1] it has an eternal quality which is deeper than the circumstances we encounter. Like a submarine, joy is deeper than the storm.

Eternal Void

God created us with an eternal void. [2]     

Our hearts long to be satiated with a joy which can only come from God. He is the originator of joy. All earthy whiffs of gladness point to Him. Early in our lives we tend to experience joy much easier.

     

As we grow older, when the pains of life press in, we can lose the scent of joy and travel down long forsaken paths looking for lasting satisfaction.

Think about some things which brought you joy as a child.

Searching for Joy

As a child,  I remember the joys of snow, Christmas, the community pool and hanging out with my grandfather, Pop. My grandparents lived next to me growing up.

On summer afternoons, much to my delight, Pop hit me pop balls in the field in between our two houses.

As I got older and began to feel some independence, I remember thinking how happy and satisfied I’d be when I was old enough to drive and had my own car. I worked and bought an F85 Deluxe Oldsmobile and it did satisfy me for a short while.

Then I began to think that if I had a girl friend to ride in the car with me, I’d be happy and satisfied. I met Annie and that satisfied me for a short while.

Then I began to think that if I could move away to college, I’d be happy and satisfied. I moved away to Columbia, SC and attended the University of South Carolina and felt satisfied was for a short while.

Then I began to think about how satisfied I’d be when I  graduated college and began a life on my own.  And when I did, I felt satisfied for a short while.    

“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God the creator made known by Jesus Christ.” Blaise Pascal

The endless search for joy continued.

Eventually, I would surrender my life to the God, the source of all joy.  But it would be years before I fully understood that God Himself would satisfy the deep longings of my heart. As a young believer, I still tried to draw my happiness and sense of well being from my circumstances. And sometimes I still do.

I’m realizing now that the joy which exudes from God, satisfies the deep longing of my heart.

On top of that, the joy of God fills me with courage and strength.

A Matter of the Heart

It’s really a matter of our hearts, the well spring of our lives. [3]

The condition of our hearts determine our courage.

No wonder the French word for heart—”coeur” is where we get the word “courage”. The state of our heart determines whether we’re en-couraged or dis-couraged.

God’s joy fortified us with strength [4] and infuses us with courage. [5]  

Joy is like a nectar for our hearts. 

Since joy is more than a feeling, we can choose it, even during the hardest of times.

Joy is an awareness of the nearness of God. 

In Your presence is fullness of joy (Psalms 16:11b).

In the next post, we’ll continue to explore the importance of joy in our lives when we look at the commands to be joyful.

From 1 to 10, where would you say your joy meter is at this moment? 

Prayer

Lord, thank you for leading me to You. You are who I’ve been searching for all my life, though for years I didn’t know it. Only You satisfy me completely. I’m sorry for seeking my satisfaction in anything but You. Please show me quickly when I try and find lasting satisfaction apart from You. You are my Highest Joy. I praise You and rejoice in who You are.  Amen

Journal Time

With your journal in hand, spend some time thinking about your own journey. Write about the deep longings in your heart?  Document your search for joy. What have you tried other than God to satisfy your soul? How do you still depend upon your circumstances to feel okay? Write a prayer to God expressing your delight in Him. 

[1] Psalms 16:11

[2] Ecclesiastes 3:11 

[3]  Proverbs 4:23

[4]  Nehemiah 8:10b

[5] Hebrews 12:1-2

Please Check out the  Cola City Podcast . Discussions that impact the vision of reaching every man, woman, and child in a city.

Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures.

Subscribe below to get email notifications of new posts. We post a few times a month. Thank you for reading. 

 Novels by the Author:

Rob Buck

What happens when a professor figures out how to send messages to his younger self to try and avoid the suicide of his best friend? Did he change more than he bargained for?  Beyond Time

By finding two undelivered letters in a old shack deep in the woods, Cassie and Daniel unknowing set off a series of events which uncover a plot to wipe out a whole family Hope Remains

 

Complete Joy

Joy is a Person

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I’ve been a joy seeker from an early age. As a child, before life’s troubles crusted my heart, I tasted joy: Christmas smells and lights, waking up to freshly fallen snow, strawberries from my grandfather’s garden, family vacations in Vermont.

These whiffs awakened desires for lasting joy built into me by my Creator. I went searching for more,  but  lost the scent along the way, traveling many wrong roads.

  • Lasting joy isn’t found in buying your first car or going on your first date in said car.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t happen when you leave home and go to college. Nor does it happen when you finally graduate.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from drugs, sex and rock and roll.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from pleasing people or accumulating possessions
  • Lasting joy doesn’t happen when you get married and have children of your own.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from trying to be a great  husband or father.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t happen when you’re successful in your career, when you pay downs debts and build up your 401K.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from trying to live a life free from troubles and striving after smooth circumstances.

God doesn’t want us settling for finite pleasures to fulfill our need for eternal joy. He made us for much more. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “It would seem that our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday the sea. We are too far to easily pleased.”[1]

Joy isn’t automatically realized when you give your life to Christ and invite Him to indwell you by His Holy Spirit. But this is where the journey begins.

Wrong pursuits  of joy require painful redirection of passions, making room for more Jesus in our lives. He is Joy Personified.  “In Your Presence is Fullness of Joy;”[2]

On the night before He died, Jesus laid out in clear, unmistakable terms, our path to complete Joy:

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.(John 15:9-12 NIV)

Verse 9 – A declaration of undeserved Love and a command to Remain

Verse 10 – A conditional for staying in the love of Jesus

Verse 12– A specific command, fulfilling the condition and becoming the true goal of every day

Verse 11– The astounding result of loving sacrificially – Complete Joy

Lord, help us receive Your love and give it away. How brilliant that the way we stay in Your love and experience Your Joy is by loving others the way you’ve loved us. This can only happen as we abide in You. Day by day guide us to those You want to love though us. Fill us with the Joy of Your presence as we love.

[1] The Weight of Glory, C.S.Lewis

[2] Psalm 16:11b NASB

Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures. Subscribe below to get email notifications of new posts. We post once a week. Thank you for reading. 

 Novels by the Author:

Beyond Time

Hope Remains

The Lord Delights in his Children

Running to your Love

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 The Lord your God is in your midst;  he is a warrior who can deliver.  He takes great delight in you;  he renews you by his love; he shouts for joy over you.” Zephaniah 3:17 (NET)

Can You Come Play?

During a recent trip to Walmart, I had a delightful surprise. I was in ”get-er-done” mode, wheeling my buggy toward the area I hoped I’d find camping chairs, when my Fitbit informed me I had a call. Looking down and seeing it was my daughter, I tapped my blue tooth and answered it. But it wasn’t my daughter, it was my four year old grandson. “Can you come play?” he asked.

If you’ve reached the stage in life where you’ve been blessed with grandchildren, you understand how his question made me feel. My heart absolutely over flowed with love for him.

There’s a different dimension of love I’ve experienced with our five grandkids. We don’t love them more than our children, just differently. Without the responsibility of direct parenting, I feel freer to love. In fact, in a very real sense grandkids help me experience the moments of life more fully and God’s love more deeply.

God’s Love

The next day in church, there was a phrase in one of the songs about running to God’s love. It’s a great concept, but understanding God’s continual open arms to us can be extremely hard to grasp. Speaking of Christ’s love, Paul prays we might comprehend its vastness and know this love which surpasses knowledge. With our limited minds, this picture of unending, unchangeable love can only be believed by faith, especially in light of our human failings.

When I think of how I’ve disappointed God, seeds of doubt creep in. Are his arms still open? Does he still desire our embrace?

Pop’s Love

What love I experienced when my grandson called me! If I wasn’t an hour and fifteen minutes away, I’d have driven straight there. And even with the distance, surprising him crossed my mind. Being “Pop” to my grandchildren has expanded my heart to measures I didn’t expect, but my love for them is a mere shadow compared to God’s love for me.

Expanding My Concept of love

When we think of our children or grandchildren, and really ponder our love for them, we can understand a deeper dimension of God’s love. Those closest to us can cause the deepest pain, but no matter what a child or grandchild does, would I ever refuse their desire to run into my arms?

Challenge:

Close your eyes and picture God holding out his arms to you for a running embrace.  Is there a hesitation? If so, what are you afraid of? Whatever it is, it’s a lie.

 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39 (NASB)

Prayer:

Lord, thank you for giving me a picture of your love for me, when I think of my grandchildren. Allowing me to be a grandfather helps me understand your love for me even more.

But sometimes there’s a “disconnect” in my heart. Your love is true. Like the Father in the story of the prodigal son, you have open arms for all your children. Whether we’ve been in the distant lands of false affections or striving to earn your love at home, your love never fails.

Your arms are always open and you delight in us running to you. In fact, when you see us running to you, because we are in Christ, you see your Son.