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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

 

The Joy of Love

The Love, Joy Connection

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A Story

Close to thirty years ago, I was mowing the lawn with the small tractor I inherited from my grandfather. D.B. Leatherwood was a famous lawyer in upstate South Carolina, but to me he was Pop. We were close. I grew up with only a rolling hill separating me from my grandparent’s house. Pop was a self-made man. Orphaned at an early age and raised by his older sisters in the hills of North Carolina, he worked hard to earn a law degree from the University of North Carolina. He moved to Greenville to open his practice and that’s where he met my grandmother.

Pop didn’t show affection, but I knew he loved me. On late summer afternoons he’d hit fly balls to me down the hill. His batting was pristine. I don’t remember him ever even fouling a ball. At dusk, as the cicadas begin their serenade, he’d invite me up for a Pepsi and a bowl of cashews and Fritos. We’d sit in between the massive white columns on his front porch and “watch the world go by” along the busy street in front of his house.

As I mowed and navigated Pop’s old tractor around our small plot of grass, I thought of him. He took such good care of us when my father moved out. In my mind’s eye I could see him cutting our grass with his straw hat and plaid shirt, leaning in to keep the tractor balanced on the hills. He was like a father to me.

The thought of him that day filled my heart with what I must call joy. Though I felt happy, the experience was more than a feeling. For a brief moment the challenges of being a young, married, father of four with a stressful IT job seemed small. It was an eternal, larger than life, moment.

Looking back, I recognize part of the sweetness of the moment was the nostalgic remembrance of my childhood, but the gladness and joy stemmed from my relationship with Pop and our mutual love for each other.

That experience and many like it have made me realize how interwoven joy is with love. Personally, my experiences of joy seem to always involve a loving relationship, mostly with God, but also with the people I cherish.

The Joy of Loving

Scripture confirms how tightly coupled love and joy really are.

David, who loved God with a passion well documented,  wrote that in God, our highest relationship, we find full joy.[1] The Psalms are filled with his worshipful love mixed with joy.

“For You, O Lord, have made me glad by what You have done. I will sing for joy at the works of your hands.” (Psalm 92:4 NASB)

David’s continual posture of loving God brought joy to his heart and gave him courage in the face of many difficulties.

As Saul’s men watched the house to kill him, David wrote to the Lord, “But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength; Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your loving lovingkindness in the morning” (Psalm 59:16 NASB).

Our love of God, which extends to others, also fills our hearts with joy.  Follow Jesus’ love for His disciples.

After Jesus washed His disciples’ feet He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34 NASB).

Jesus went on to say that if we loved others in the manner in which He has loved us, two amazing things would happen: we would live in His love and His complete joy would be ours.[2]

And concerning Jesus’ joy, the love connection is clear. In Hebrews we read that His love for us gave Him the joy He needed to endure the cross and secure our salvation.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB)

We find the correlation between love and joy in many other places in Scripture. No matter what is going on, in and around us, loving God and others is the pathway to a joy which will bring courage and strength to our lives.

“Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10b NASB).

The Challenge

Check your heart. At this moment circumstances may be pleasant, or you may be facing difficult trials. Are you encouraged or discouraged? In other words, do you have courage or not? Courage, fueled by a joyful heart, is what we need each day.  No wonder we get the word “courage” from the French word for heart – “cour.”

Where do we find joy? It’s very easy to seek it from the world’s commodities: happy circumstances, pleasantries and fleeting affections which promise much, but produce only pain.

Do we do depend upon the happenings of life to keep our hearts glad? Certainly, there is much in this life to enjoy, but true joy, the kind which yields lasting strength and courage, comes from loving God first and then loving others as He’s loved us.

When this is the case, we are freed. 

Free to love and free to truly enjoy what God has given us.  

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love.  If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you (John 15:9-12 NASB).

May we determine to fill our days in worshipful love of God; thanking Him, praising Him and adoring Him.

May we bask in His lovingkindness and love Him with everything within us!

As we love and draw near to Him, joy overtakes us because He is fullness of Joy.

Prayer

Lord, if I’m not careful, my heart gets attached to my circumstances. When this happens my courage to face life’s challenges wanes and flows based on my sense of how I’m doing. When this happens, You have repeatedly directed me to love. Over and over again, this redirects my heart to You, my Fullness of Joy.

May my days be filled with a continual longing to praise You, thank You, and love You. Please help me slow down enough to listen to You and to love the folks You bring my way, even those who hurt me. For this is the example you set for us when you washed Peter and Judas’ feet.

When I love, You fill my heart with gladness and joy, giving me the courage to face what comes my way.

When I stray from this single focused determination to love, please guide me quickly back.

I love You Lord.

Amen.

[1] Psalm 16:11

[2] John 15:9-12

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

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

God's Greater Purposes

Nearsighted? Corrective Lens not Required

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From my distress I called upon the Lord; He answered me and set me in a large place. (Psalm 118:5 NASB)

My childhood was somewhat magical. We grew up with only an acre field separating us from our maternal grandparents. On late summer afternoons, my grandfather, Pop, would tell me to get my glove. My cousins would join me if they were around. He’d then hit pop flies to us in the field between our houses. We absolutely loved it.

On one such occasion, Polly, my older cousin, told me the baseball looked like a cotton ball to her because she was so nearsighted. I think it was the first time I’d heard the term. I would soon develop the condition myself. However, what impresses me today is how nearsighted I can be spiritually.

Nearsightedness – “A condition in which close objects appear clearly, but far ones don’t.”[1]

We’re told to set our minds on things above, where we’re seated with Christ in the heavenly realms,[2]  but eternal things are fuzzy. What we see with our physical eyes are temporal and momentary,  but they’re up close and clear and much easier to see.

Orienting our lives around what God is doing in His greater story is not as easy as putting on a pair of eternal glasses. We need Him to reveal spiritual truths to us.

As we seek Him, He’ll show us even our afflictions are producing something so valuable  our sufferings are less than nothing in comparison.[3]

God wants us free from ourselves. Free from  self-dependence, self-glorification, self-gratification and  self-worth. Self keeps us from fully experiencing Him, the source of all Joy.[4]

God wants us to orient our lives around what He’s doing  in each of us to give us the freedom to fully enjoy His nearness. He’s asking us to trust in His love, even when we don’t understand. As we glance His way, even during the most grievous difficulties, He’ll cure our nearsightedness.  He wants to open our eyes to see that He’s all we need. Ours is to trust in His everlasting love in spite of what we see and experience.

Lord, so often I lose sight of what you’re doing in my life and in the lives of those around me. You tell me to rejoice in You at all times, but this seems impossible. Only You can give me the sight to see Your work in the midst of earthly struggles. Please help me trust You even when circumstances are bleak.  Continue to show me Your ways. Reveal areas where I’m still looking only at what’s in front of me and not seeing your greater purposes. Help me see clearly that You alone are my Peace, my Joy, my Hope, my Life. 

[1] support.google.com medical information

[2] Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 3:2

[3] II Corinthians 4:16-18, Romans 8:18

[4] Psalm 16:11b

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:

Beyond Time

Hope Remains