Everyone wants to be joyful. The question is: how do we get there?
This world offers us a multitude of options, from stuff to experiences, but none of these create lasting joy. As a matter of fact, most of their power is in the expectation of joy: how great the next trip will be, how this new gadget will revolutionize your life, or how a new outlook will help you find the joy you already have inside of yourself. The promise is better than the actual thing; even when a moment meets expectation, it fades into the background quickly.
I have found that spirituality prays on the same notion. Cults and New Age mysticism give promises toward a fulfilled life and a joy that is missing. They offer crystals and meditation and an understanding that comes from studying the alignment of the stars or being in touch with Mother Nature. While this offers a path to joy, it imagines joy as this uncontrolled mass that can just be found and picked up all over the place.
The Bible gives us a different description. Joy is the found through proper relationship with God. We are joyful when we find our meaning and purpose in Him. We find joy in other people when we see them through the lens of Christ. We have right relationship with the world around us when we allow the Creator of the earth to define what is valuable and worth protecting. We have right relationship with ourselves when we learn to see ourselves as God does: as redeemed sinners who are adopted and loved by our heavenly Father. The path to joy is the path to God.
This doesn’t mean that we accept Jesus and then everything goes well. Living life in a broken world is going to cause mourning and weeping (as we saw in Psalm 30). The promise is that the conclusion is joy eternal. That while this path may lead through the wilderness, it leads us to perfection. Our work, in this life, is to find joy in this hope of glory; to pull the eternal into the present. In Psalm 30, David gave us a four ways to do this:
Trust that all that happens in this life was ordained to bring God’s people to JOY.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. | Romans 8:28
When we view the present as the end, when we are most concerned with how to make this moment perfection, we miss out on the benefits of the journey. We may not always understand it, and I don’t have a perfect answer for every question of: why would God…? He has chosen to operate in such a way that this world is the means by which He will declare His glory fully (and in turn bring joy to His people). Rather than having to know every part, we must choose to trust that He knows every part. This makes every moment meaningful and ultimately good.
Celebrate those moments of pure JOY.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. | Philippians 4:4–7
While every moment is meaningful, there are those where we CAN see the good. There are times when joy is tangible. Don’t just let these moments pass. Use them to rejoice in the glory of God and to begin to build an excitement for what it would be for ALL moments to feel like those select few.
Imagine the JOY that is to come.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. | 2 Corinthians 4:17–18
Take those moments and multiply them. Not just going from occasional to all of the time, but going from seeing through a fog to seeing face to face. The joy that we have to look forward to promises no tears. What would it take for nothing to lead to sadness? God promises no sickness. How would life be different if our bodies did not break down? These questions are just the beginning. God has given us an imagination and put eternity in our hearts so that we can long for things never seen, and hope for what seems impossible. To do this makes us more and more excited for a world that contains all of the good and none of the pain.
Reflect on the cross.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. | Hebrews 12:1–2
All of the good without the pain is not where we live yet, and so we need some assurance that God can transform evil into good. This is what makes the cross of Jesus Christ such an important motivator. If we were left to trust in nothing but promises, we would have nothing to hold on to. Jesus came to His people, showed the love and mercy of God, revealed the power of God over His creation and showed Himself to be alive and active as He returned to Heaven to rule over creation. To look at the cross is to dwell on the ways that Jesus made all of the prophecies and promises physical. He gave us an earthly description of heavenly things so that when we look forward to His return, it isn’t just blind faith; it is a return of the king. It is the completion of what has already been done. He is the founder and perfecter of our faith! What has been done points us to what is being done and what will be done in the future.
This gives us a path that has a definite end, that is being directed by a good God, and that promises to make sense of all steps along the way. This is God’s gift to His people, a peace that passes all understanding, because while we still have to walk the path, it is laid out graciously in front of us.