Joy
By Ben VanDerLinden
The cacophony of choruses crashes over cranial crevices - Joy to the World, the Lord is come… Joyful, Joyful, we adore Thee God of glory, Lord of love… I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where?…
Exactly, WHERE?!?
Growing up in the church, there was always talk of the promises of a faithful life, one being “You will be joyful”. Many times when thoughts of how life was going, was faith being followed well enough, was the heart really subjugated to Christ, and was the ‘old man’ dead, the rumination on where joy existed and was manifested would spring to the fore. If one was truly sold to the cross, born anew to life eternal, then joy should be a dominate fruit/experience.
Do you have joy down in YOUR heart?
What does it mean to be joyful?
The dictionary says joy is a cause of keen pleasure or a state of happiness.
Many would say there exist distinct differences between happiness, pleasure, and joy. C. S. Lewis posits they share in common the premise that once you have experienced them you will want to experience them again, though.
The pursuit of happiness is an American ‘right’, one nobly pursued though one conveniently vague enough to always be out of reach. To be happy is to be delighted over a particular thing or situation, to experience emotional ease. Happiness recognizes one’s condition and finds gratitude within the moment, even when desires are not even within sight, let alone grasp. Happiness seems to be the state of being where we find contentment with our circumstances in ways which reflect a heart which has not calloused over, or at least recognizes that the pursuit of pleasure needs to be postponed or pruned at times. Seeking pleasure at all costs and in all areas denies the reality, the tension of life.
Pleasure is enjoyment or satisfaction specifically derived from one’s liking, a gratification of one’s desire. The pleasure principle posits that a person avoids pain, instinctively seeking pleasure through the id’s satisfying of biological and psychological needs. Pleasure seems to be the active emotional aspect of being happy about getting your way. Experiencing pleasure means the ‘world is as it should be in the largest sense possible’. However, the issue is that many times our pleasure comes at the cost of another, and quickly ebbs and flows with the whims of our desires. One day we find pleasure in the little things - holding hands with another, soft caresses, small gestures of affection, then we grow accustomed to those stimuli, to find them unnoticeable at first and then, in more difficult times, they register as pain. Pleasure has its moment; however, it definitely is not happiness.
Joy is the great delight one experiences from something outside which many times is beyond knowledge or insight. Where pleasure and happiness are rooted in prior experience, joy seems to be created in the moment or defies expectations: An experience or state of being which did not seem possible or even make sense before now. The important distinction is the other, the community inherent in experiencing joy. Joy allows for seeking the gratification of a community, of seeing others’ pleasure and happiness separate from our own. Joy seems to combine the two to equal more than the sum. State of being like happiness and yet known to sneak up in a moment like a rush of pleasure.
Joy to the world - look everyone, the expected king is here, yet his kingdom is not what we have known.
Joyful, joyful - the creator has moved in and set up shop. No longer to be adored from afar or only in limited engagement. Close enough to touch, works hard enough to smell, lives with us.
Where is that joy? In the secret place, in the part of me I avoid at times. The heart of me, what I was created for and have longed to be. Close as my shadow.
The Gautama Buddha expresses the moment of enlightenment by saying - “When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” When one is no longer pursuing extremes in life, then joy seems to snuggle in and take up residence, to hide in the open.
Richard Rohr states - “Joy proceeds from the inner realization of union with God, which descends upon us at ever deeper levels as we walk our faith journey.” The rush sought when young in faith for the ecstasy of Gnosis, of being ‘in’ the flow of the Kingdom, has matured over the years to realizing that the common union of all people being in and experiencing a state of Love ‘feels’ more like REAL JOY.
In Ecclesiastes 9 (MSG)
Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don’t skimp on colors and scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!
Be a refreshment this season by recognizing and giving great joy and encouragement.
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Blessings,
Ben VanDerLinden