Joy is more than happiness, it is more than just a fleeting feeling that comes and goes. It is a constant way of life. There are so many ways that we seek what we think is joy, but is really only happiness. God spoke to me as to what joy is and what happiness is, as they are not the same.
I am seeing now how much of my life is going from happiness to happiness, hoping to be fulfilled, hoping to find sustainment and joy in a thing, or in a person. In reality the only place I can find true fulfillment is in Jesus. The only way to have true joy is to choose to seek out joy, to seek out my creator who is the only thing that could ever sustain and fulfill me.
Joy is about choosing to love and who to put my hope in.
I was working tonight and saw a magazine that made me think. It was Oprah’s magazine, and it was her favorite things issue. Underneath the title of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” was a little tag line that said: “You’re looking for joy, you’ve come to the right place.”
The entire night I could not get that saying out of my head. “You’ve come to the right place.” As if we could find true, lasting, legitimate joy from things. As if Oprah had the answer to joy, as if all this stuff she called great could ever be enough to sustain us, to bring satisfaction. As if the answer to lasting happiness, lasting joy was in an object. As if we can just buy joy with money.
Yet society is in a constant state of telling us that in order to experience true joy we need to buy more stuff. That in order to find joy we need to have more, better, newer things.
The newer, better car.
The newest ipod.
The bigger house.
The better computer.
The name brand clothes.
What would it look like if we figured out how to wear joy?
It almost seems as if we hide behind our things. We collect all of this stuff and hold on to it so tight that we have no room to fully grasp and embrace joy. It is so much easier to find comfort in material things. If we have stuff, why do we need to find joy in God?
It is so much easier to jump from happiness to fleeting happiness, hoping this next new thing will be what brings us fulfillment and joy.
I am so guilty of this. I hold on so tightly to my stuff, convincing myself that I need it or that it is truly bringing me joy.
The reality is that all the stuff in my life holds me back from that joy. It distracts me from what matters in life, it tells me that I can settle for temporary happiness when infinite joy is offered.
I obviously have nowhere near perfected choosing joy, but seeing that magazine today was a good reminder to me of the ways in which I tend to find temporary happiness in things and call it joy. I was reminded of how easily I often do not choose to live in joy, how I do not choose to be joyful in hardship. I often choose worry, I choose not to live in the truth that I can be joyful because of my savior and his goodness and sovereignty.
It reminded me of just how much I use material things to try to fill a void in me, to try to fill my emptiness.
I want to learn to wear joy, to choose to live in joy. Joy is not wrapped up in what I have or material things. My joy is found in working to bring God’s Kingdom here on earth. My joy is in relationship with Jesus. My joy is in seeking God’s heart and seeking his justice. My joy is in seeing broken things renewed.
My joy is in him, and I am learning what it means to be joyful through hardship. I am slowly learning what it truly means to choose joy.
Sidenote: Watch Katie Makkai’s poem, “Pretty” which I quoted from earlier. So incredibly good.
Watch it. Do it.
Life as I know it in India 