Joy

Joy. It’s what makes Christians stand out from the world. Along with the gift of Christ himself comes everything we will ever really need. Our security is guaranteed. Our provision is sure. Our path is guided. Undoubtedly we pass through seasons of difficulty and sorrow and uncertainty, but real joy isn’t conditioned upon our circumstances. So why are we gloomy much of the time? We don’t have to be gloomy. We should most certainly not be gloomy! But all too often our thoughts and words are punctuated by grumblings and bad moods. We look at what we lack rather than all we have.

We are privileged women, not only spiritually but temporally. That is part of our problem. We are over-privileged. Available to us is a pill for every ailment, government aid for financial difficulty, and thirty choices of breakfast cereal in the grocery aisle. On top of that we have free access to the Word and the people of God. Because those things are so easily had, we have come to see our privileges as rights, and such an outlook is a joy crusher. Everything we have—health, freedom, friendship, family, job, government protection—is a gift, not a right. Remembering that truth when things go wrong keeps joy alive. Joy is always available to those indwelt by the Holy Spirit, which is why gloominess is a copout.

The apostle Paul was probably the most joyful man who ever lived, yet he had few privileges. Here is how Paul described his life:

Far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches (2 cor 11:23–28).

The man who lived those things also wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil 4:4). Despite all he went through on a regular basis, he could rejoice because “the Lord is at hand” (v. 5) He never lost sight of who controlled his life, and he lived for his Lord: “for to me to live is Christ” (1:21). Joy and Christ-centeredness go hand-in-hand, so if we lack more joy more often than we have it, we aren’t Christ-centered. It’s that simple. The trick is how to change our self-oriented, worldly focus to Paul’s focus.

First and foremost, we have to want to. Some of us find a perverse satisfaction in our gloom, much like a baby pitching a tantrum to get what she wants. But God doesn’t respond to tantrums. Our moodiness dishonors God and robs us of the joy that lies right at our fingertips.