Journey Towards J O Y

Happiness and joy. Joy and happiness. I feel like, in my experience within the Christian culture, these two terms get tossed around flippantly without there ever being a real clear understanding as to what they actually mean. 

“Joy is not the same as happiness.”

“You can be happy and have no joy.” 

“Joy is about God and happiness isn’t.” 

That is what’s spoken from one Christian to the next, from the Christian to the pagan (God help us) and from the pulpit to the pew. Happiness and joy are vastly different. I have learned that. I am experiencing that. Now, I think I am believing that. I believe wholeheartedly that what I have been learning can breathe air, freedom, and Life on every last weary soul that is tired of putting on the face of happiness, day in and day out, due to a false view of how joy is woven into the Gospel. Here’s a glimpse of my journey.

These last several months in my own life have been…. hard (I contemplated a stronger word). But, just hard. It has been full of new things, grieving the absence of many things, disappointments in all things, etc. You get it. Hard. Recently, I sat down and wrote out a bunch of “I feel” statements (for someone who doesn't feel much, that was more difficult than you would imagine!) in hopes that it would help me navigate this season a little bit. Fear, anxiety, stuck, exhausted, annoyed, sad, alone, hopeful, and weary were but just a handful. However, it wasn’t until my pen hit the page and wrote one particular phrase that completely rocked my world. 

“Lord, will there be relief?” 

These words shook me to my core and shocked me all at once. Here is why: “Will there be relief?” Who am I to ask God - the one who suffered inhumane torture, descended into hell, and then rose again for the sake of those who dug His grave in the first place - if I will ever feel a little bit of relief in this seemingly “hard” season that I find myself in? It broke my heart that I would even ask. “Get it together, Nerissa. In the grand scheme, you’re okay. You’re fine. Why are you still feeling sad?” These are the things that immediately I started to tell myself. Why? Because this is what we're told. It’s shouted from the rooftops. This is the norm. “I’m good!” or “Don't you love Jesus? What do you have to be sad about?” or “At least you have __________.” These words only breed death in the life of an already weary soul and, yet, these are the very words we’ve let define what joy and happiness are to look like.

See, those words condemn and are straight from the mouth of the enemy. Jesus, however, meets us with unbelievable grace and empathy. I asked, "Lord, will there be relief?" The enemy immediately met me with condemnation but Jesus with grace upon grace; for, He is not a King that cannot empathize with the pain of His people. I think we have gotten far too uncomfortable with sadness and have coped by creating a false standard of happiness that is only preventing us from breathing in grace. It prevents us from experiencing incredible intimacy with our Jesus who silences the enemy and says, "I know, I have been there. Look at Me." Jesus answers with J O Y. I.e., Himself.

For joy to flourish, pain must be acknowledged.

For happiness to win, pain must be ignored.

Happiness condemns and says, “You don’t need relief. You are fine.” 

Joy empathizes and beckons saying, “Not my will, but yours.”

Listen, when Jesus was in the garden before He was captured, He cried out to the Father three different times to let the cup pass from Him. He wanted relief. But, it was for the joy set before Him that He was able to mutter the words, “Not my will, but yours.” Are you following? Joy didn’t remove the desire for relief. Joy didn’t put Him into a 'good mood’. My word, he was sweating blood. Joy didn’t save Him from the grave. Joy simply gave a heavenly purpose and a heavenly perspective to a really terrible, painful, awful earthly experience. That is the difference between happiness and joy.

Happiness seeks to cover up and change the feelings that oppose it. Happiness condemns. 

Joy, on the other hand, simply seeks to see through the pain and into a more glorious light.
Happiness pleases the people.
Joy pleases the King. 

One the Pastor’s I get the honor of sitting under in Houston recently said regarding these two words: “Joy is, more often than not, marked by pain.” For, it’s in the hard circumstances that we are seeking relief. We’re seeking the ability to see through the pain and into the most glorious of reliefs - the God of all comfort.

How does this come full circle? My season is hard. It is. No, it’s not as bad as it could be and there have been unbelievably wonderful moments. But, it hasn’t been easy either. So long as I am taking happiness over joy, I will simply seek to mask the pain for the sake of entertaining, “Why do you need relief? You are fine.” But Jesus, our generous and gracious Jesus, says, “No, do what I did. The circumstance may not change, but look here. Be in pain, but look here. Be sad, but look here. Be lonely, but look here. Be weary, but look here. I am JOY.”

What if joy was ours for the taking through the pain?
What if we began to admit, acknowledge, and walk through genuine pain?

I have to believe we'd be met with abundant life and breathtaking intimacy with our King.

Ironically (or, not at all) I’ve been making my way through 2 Corinthians which is, essentially, a book about the incredibly painful life of Paul and the abundant comfort that meets him through Jesus. After I finished this whole process of writing down my “I feel ____” statements, had my socks completely knocked off by the Truth I just told you, and had a really wonderful cry (amen?) I opened up to 2 Corinthians and these words jumped off that page and fueled the words now on this one: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” My friends, hear these words - be reconciled. I plead with you. Don’t simply hide and cover; rather, walk through and walk toward. May we be a people who aren’t afraid of taking pain into the presence of God, but believe with every fiber of our being in the grace that flowed from the Cross. May we be a people that choose to walk through the muck and into the presence of God to be reconciled for the joy set before us rather than putting on our daily “happy” hat only to pretend the pain isn't real. Be reconciled to God. Only in His presence does pain, not disappear, but become the stepping stones to JOY - that is, Jesus Himself.

It’s okay to not be okay, but Jesus loves us far to much to keep us there. Lets take our sadness to Him and stop ignoring it.

Joy and happiness are vastly different. Might God grant grace in our daily pursuit to walk in joy rather than happiness and may God grant courage to the Church to flea from the bonds of empty happiness and run toward everlasting joy.