Joy! Joy! Joy!

This weeks Fruit of the Spirit is JOY!  This is one of my favorites, cause who doesn't like to be around a person who is just a happy and joyful person? 

Finding joy is not a challenge for me. I’m naturally an upbeat person; sunny side of life kind of gal. When I talk about joy, I’m not doing so from the perspective of a generally peppy person who never seems to have a bad day, because we all do from time to time.

Joy does not mean feeling good all the time, that’s pretty much impossible even for the most upbeat person. So what is Joy?

Here is the definition I’ve come up with from studying Scripture:

Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.

You’ll find nothing in that definition about happy feelings, because, as we all know, happiness is fleeting and temporary. That is not to say we do not feel joy, because you can’t have happiness without joy, but you can have joy without feelings of happiness.

Joy in most people’s minds is synonymous with pleasure. However, joy is not pleasure. Pleasure is a rather short-term, short-lived emotion; it appears in flashes, coming and going fairly quickly. Joy cannot be bought or sought externally and does not give instant gratification. Joy is also not contentment. Many of us think we’ve come to a place of joy when we feel momentary peace or simply just a lack of trauma-drama in our lives. Yet merely settling for a life that is ‘good enough’ or ‘okay,’ but not ‘great,’ is not joy. Pleasure and contentment can also bring their opposites: displeasure and discontentment. These are fleeting and complacent emotions which, unfortunately, we confuse with joy much of the time.

Joy, on the other hand, has no opposite. When we are going through pain, joy still remains,(after pleasure and contentment are long gone).

We tend to think that life comes in hills and valleys. I like how Rick Warren describes life as train tracks. Every day of your life, wonderful, good things happen that bring pleasure and contentment and beauty to you. At the exact same time, painful things happen to you or those you love that disappoint you, hurt you, and fill you with sorrow. These two tracks — both joy and sorrow — run parallel to each other every single moment of your life. That’s why, when you’re in the midst of an amazing experience, you have a nagging realization that it’s not perfect. And while you’re experiencing something painful, there’s the glorious realization that there is still beauty and loveliness to be found. They’re inseparable. If you look down train tracks into the brightness of the horizon, the tracks become one. You can’t distinguish them as two separate tracks. That’s how it will be for us, too. One day, our parallel tracks of joy and sorrow will merge into one. The day we meet Jesus Christ in person and see the brightness of who he is, it will all come together for us. Then it will all make complete sense.

The joy of His Spirit exists no matter what is going on in our lives, it is not swayed by the ups and downs of this life because with this joy there is always that silver lining of hope that remind us we are not alone and that everything we deal with, good and bad, is as temporary as our time on earth.

The children’s song, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart” said it best. Joy is deep, like the roots of a tree and even if you try to dig it up there would still be some roots. I like this joy, I need this joy and I wish this joy for all of you too!