Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Zephaniah 3:14
Why does it sometimes seem easier to be dismal than to be joyful? We may listen to the news, talk to our neighbor suffering from crippling arthritis, and then the snowplow goes through and jams up our driveway minutes after we came in from shoveling. Sing for joy? Not today.
Joy is not the same as happiness. We are often unhappy in our present circumstances. We might be ill, struggling with loss, missing someone, or just plain frustrated with our computer. In spite of this unhappiness, deep down there is joy because we know we are loved by God and God can use even this present unhappiness for a greater good and ultimate joy.
Joy is not the same as pleasure. We spend a lot of time seeking pleasure and it is usually fairly easy to come by for most of us. We find pleasure in our material things, in entertainment, in food, in travel, in distractions of all sorts, but pleasure is only momentary relief. Joy, on the other hand, is found the core of our being because it originates in God. The moments of authentic joy are when we sense God breaking into our lives, an awareness of the divine that can come through nature, scripture, human interactions, poetry, music, art, or any form of creativity and beauty.
In his book, Here and Now, Henri Nouwen says…
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safely and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.
Joy comes in all sizes and shapes. There are the small, everyday joys when your car starts in the bitter cold, a brilliant cardinal appears in your snow dusted tree, you get a call from your college son saying, “Thanks for the package, Mom!” Bigger joys could be a new job after a long stretch of unemployment, favorable results from medical tests, or a new grandchild safely delivered into the family.
All the little, everyday joys, and the bigger, life-changing joys are connected to the one great joy of our life: the joy of knowing that God loves us with an all-encompassing, everlasting, abundant love—NO MATTER WHAT!
Why are we not shouting and singing for joy as Zephaniah entreats us?
Lord, help me to seek and to find your gift of joy today!
