Do you have joy? When is the last time you experienced full-throttled, deep, peaceful joy? So much of life today robs us of joy, and that’s not right! Does it surprise you that God created us to have joy, and even more, to be “full of joy” (John 17:13). As C.S. Lewis said, joy is the serious business of heaven.[1] God is serious and intent on giving us full, overflowing joy. “God created us in joy and created us for joy….We have God’s joy in our blood.”[2]
A CLINIC ON JOY
If this is so, then what is this joy? Is it different from happiness? How do we get joy? Jesus gave a clinic on joy, and of all things it was on the night before he was mutilated and humiliated in the worst type of execution humans ever invented. The theme that runs throughout his parting words to his followers in John 14-17 is joy, a word he repeats 8 times in these three chapters. Jesus has spoken frankly to his disciples that he was going to be crucified in the morning. These are not good circumstances; in fact, from all appearances, Jesus and his disciples are in the worst possible situation. So what does Jesus say to them? “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me” (John 14:1).
Why in the world should they trust him? We might similarly ask: Why should we trust in God when life is hard? Jesus immediately tells them why, which is the first reason for joy: because Jesus came to do away with death. Jesus will die, but he will (and did) rise from the dead, never to die again. Jesus tells them “Now is the time of your grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy” (16:22). This isn’t just a miracle that happened 2,000 years ago. Jesus’ resurrection means death is not the end! It means that all the suffering and death that we will encounter does not have the last word. It means that God loves us so much that he will not let death come between us. Those fragrant scents and tastes of joy we experience even now—the love of friends and family, the beauty of mountains and sunsets, the taste of strawberries and chocolate, the truth of justice and honesty—are indeed what God has created us to enjoy forever. Joy springs from our hope in the faithful love of God seen in the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.
But there is more reason for joy. We find joy not just in the hope that things will in the end be good. It is also that we are not alone here. God has joined us right in the middle of all the muck and sickness and loneliness and failure and pain and hate and despair. God has extended his hand, his nail-scarred hand, to us prodigals and said “Come back—I love you!” God has shown the “full extent of his love” (13:1) and humbled himself to wash our dirty feet. God came near to be with us in the middle of our failure and suffering. God doesn’t just “forget” our failure and suffering, he joins it to redeem it, to even use it for good things. God wants to be with us so badly that he lays down his life to make sure that we are never separated from his love. Joy springs from our hope in the faithful love of God seen in the suffering, redeeming love of Jesus.
But there is even more reason for joy. Much of what Jesus says in John 14-17 has to do with us experiencing the personal presence of God now, in this life, while we await the renewal of heaven and earth. Jesus promised, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (14:18). He comes to us now in a personal way: “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him” (14:21). Jesus promises that God will make his home in our hearts: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (14:23). Jesus repeats this thought in Revelation 3:20, using the metaphor of God sitting down with us for a delicious meal: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.” The meal is the richness of enjoying the love, peace, truth, purposefulness, fellowship, and joy of God, which is ours now for the taking! Jesus says, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (17:3). If we open the door, God himself, by his personal presence–his very Spirit–will illuminate our minds and hearts to experience the reality of the overflowing, joyful, faithful love of God. John 17 ends with this prayer of Jesus: “I have made you (Righteous Father) known to them and will continue to make you known to them in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and that I myself may be in them” (17:26). Joy springs from knowing, experiencing, and trusting the faithful love of God.
JOY IS WHAT WE REALLY WANT
So much of our lives is about the “pursuit of happiness.” There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that, but unfortunately happiness depends on our circumstances. In our pursuit to arrange our lives so we will be happy, we rush around trying to adjust our circumstances, to control our lives. But our rushing often makes us worried and unhappy. And those things we thought would bring happiness either don’t live up to the expectations or don’t last. But joy is different. Joy doesn’t depend on circumstances, and, as Jesus said, joy can be ours even in the most difficult circumstances. Strangely, I (and others) have experienced a profound, deep love and joy right in the middle of the worst suffering. I was shocked by the feeling, but I do believe it was the gift of God’s love and his comforting presence. While happiness is also a gift from God, in this world we are not always promised happiness. But we are promised joy. And again, joy comes from knowing, experiencing, and trusting the faithful love of God. “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing—sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death—can take that love away.”[3]
CHOOSE JOY
But we have to choose joy. Although Jesus stands at the door and knocks, we have to open it. Love doesn’t use force to win our hearts; it loves and woos us to join the dance, to sit down for the meal. God offers us delicious fellowship and deep-down joy, but we have to choose it, and as Henri Nouwen says, we have to “keep choosing it every day.”[4] Part of that is choosing to make time every day to sit down with God. As Jesus said, to let His words “remain in us” (Jn. 15:7), to let the Spirit “teach” us and “remind” us and give us peace (Jn.14:26, 27). Sit down and be transformed by the renewing of your minds (Rom. 12:2). Align your soul and mind with the truth and reality of God.
Part of choosing joy is to get rid of the “weeds” that choke our joy: “the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth” (Mark 4:19). Nouwen reminds us that money and success can rob us of joy. “It always strikes me that rich people have more money, while poor people have more time. And when there is much time life can be celebrated….Money and success are not the problem; the problem is the absence of free, open time when God can be encountered in the present and life can be lifted up in its simple beauty and goodness.”[5]
Part of choosing joy is friendship–loving and serving other people. Growing in the beautiful art of how to love. Jesus says joy will come as we “remain in his love” and “love each other” (15:11-12). Our capacity for joy grows as we step out of our cocoons and love another person. You know what I’m talking about—probably the most joyful times you have experienced in life were when you served someone else. Joy overflows as we serve others.
JOYFUL THANKSGIVING
And part of choosing joy is being grateful. “The root of joy is gratefulness….It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”[6] Paul, writing from a prison cell, told us to choose joy with thanksgiving: “Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice! The Lord is near. So do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:4-7). We can increase our capacity for joy by recognizing life is a gift, enjoying every day, relishing people and simple things in life, and growing in thankfulness. The Psalms often make this connection between thanksgiving and joy:
“Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth! Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Ps. 100:1, 4)
What fills us with thanksgiving is the faithful love of God that endures forever: “For the LORD is good and his faithful love endures forever” (Ps. 100:5). God created us for joy, he enters our pain to give us assurance and comfort that death and suffering do not have the final say, and he knocks on our hearts to sit down for sweet joy and fellowship now.
As you sit down this Thanksgiving, choose joy. And “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” (Rom. 15:15).
[1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer, p.93, quoted in The Quotable Lewis (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1989), 359.
[2] Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2006), 240.
[3] Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 28.
[4] Id, 29.
[5] Id, 35.
[6] David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer (New York: Paulist Press/Ramsey, 1984), 204.