Our culture has an obsession with happiness, at least the appearance of it. A winning smile probably does as much to earn votes for presidential candidates as the content of their platforms. Whether it’s the face of a multi-million dollar church or the cover of a self-help book, big smiles are attractive and disarming. They communicate the kind of success in life that everyone wants. They communicate happiness. And who doesn’t want that? Best-selling author Ayn Rand said, “Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” Journalist Chuck Palahniuk said, “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” (I have no idea what that means.) And countless marriages have been sacrificed at the altar of “I deserve to be happy.”
I posit that happiness has a cousin of greater value and exponentially more staying power. It is joy. According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary it is, “Closely related to gladness and happiness, although joy is more a state of being than emotion; a result of choice.” In Galatians 5 the apostle Paul wrote about the results of godly choices and called them “fruits of the Spirit,” one of which is joy. “Joy accounts” can be found all over the Bible. After striking down a Philistine, David was met with joyful singing (1 Sam. 18:6). Isaiah said, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Is. 12:3). In Luke 2:10 the angel told Mary, “…I bring you good news of great joy….” Psalmists express joy repeatedly throughout the book.
It’s great to read about others experiencing joy in the Bible, but what about us? We’re not striking down Philistines, drawing water from wells, hearing from angels or authoring psalms. How does today’s Christian produce the fruit of joy? How can we experience this favorable “state of being” when we are so frequently filled with heartache?
Here again is a biblical paradox that our world finds irrational. In 2 Corinthians 6 Paul describes how he, and other ministers of the gospel, had modeled Christ to the church in that city. Among the descriptors he wrote that they were “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” That’s a combination that cannot be found in a search for happiness. Sorrow or sadness, by nature, is the antithesis of happiness, but it is not the enemy of joy. One can experience real, legitimate grief and yet be filled with joy.
How? Because pain and sorrow are fruits of sin, which is temporary. Children of God will not always be in a sinful world. We will die and graduate to the presence of the Lord where there will be no access to sin or its harmful outcomes. We will be in the glorious presence of our Redeemer. When Jesus returns and ushers in the new heaven and new earth “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). An entire earthly life filled to the brim with injustice, sorrow and loss is nothing compared the eternity of joy that awaits believers.
As a result, joy is based on hope and is achieved when we believe God’s promises. Do you believe them? Really believe them? The proof is in your dependence on God’s faithfulness while experiencing genuine suffering. A godly life is not one void of hardship, but one that can repeat (even through your tears) the sentiments of Paul. The joyful person acknowledges that she is not running or laboring in vain “even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me” (Phil. 2:16-18). Paul is recruiting others to rejoice with him in his suffering because it’s all worth it!
Forget the unattainable goal of “Don’t worry. Be happy.” Instead embrace the one that says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4)