Meditations on the Meaning of ChristmasSample

What is Joy?

More than a feeling…

It’s like the truth, we all want it, it’s out there but not all really seek it or really know what it is. A worldly definition falls short, describing it as temporal and dependent on circumstance.

Merriam-Webster defines joy as:

1a: the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires: DELIGHT

b: the expression or exhibition of such emotion: GAIETY

2: a state of happiness or felicity: BLISS

3: a source or cause of delight

Of course the bible would disagree with Merriam-Webster, it is not an emotion and is not dependant on success or getting what you want unless your desire is Christ. 

C.S. Lewis put it this way:

“It is a by-product. Its very existence presupposes that you desire not it but something other and outer.”

We are beings created to glorify God and our souls desperately yearn for intimacy with our heavenly Father. Before sin came into the world, communion with God filled man with true joy. Blaise Pascal wrote about that longing which exists in all of us…

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?

This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

It can be summed up in the  this quote which is often attributed to Blaise Pascal…

“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 know through Jesus Christ.”

True joy then can be defined as our soul’s expression of being satisfied in God. We were created to be in intimate communion with God, to walk with Him and when we don’t there is a restlessness that can lead to despair, an emptiness we try to fill. Our salvation is the good news of great joy but we must not stop there, we need to actively pursue joy in Christ each day. We are content when we are filled with the things of God, He is our hope and our strength that girds us in weakness and He the true joy actually makes us strong in Him.  

“for the joy of the Lord is your strength." NEH. 8:10B

Happiness then can be said to be an emotion in which we experience a range of feelings from contentment to bliss based on positive circumstance we encounter. Conversely, joy is not an emotion, it is a chosen attitude of the heart. Joy is also gift of the Holy Spirit we receive… or sometimes choose not to:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” GALATIONS 5:22

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” ROMANS 15:13

“And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit”. ACTS 13:52

Not only does joy does not depend on exterior circumstances it also doesn’t from some abstract “within” but from God through the Holy Spirit when we seek the things of the Lord.

Reflect

• When I don’t feel good, am I tempted to sink into despair or do I lean into God’s truth and seek Him? Is my gaze upward or inward?