TOGETHER: True joy follows obedience to God_122203

Posted: 12/19/03

TOGETHER: True joy follows obedience to God

Happiness is now an academic discipline, complete with a scholarly publication, The Journal of Happiness Studies.

Studying happiness, joy and pleasure is becoming a big business. It has implications for people who sell insurance, market entertainment, hire a lot of people, develop drugs or try to move merchandise out the door. Someone already may be lurking behind the Christmas tree to study what we really mean when we say, “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”

What makes you happy? What brings you joy? As you celebrate Christmas and contemplate the New Year ahead, are you excited and grateful? Or are you depressed and frustrated?

Here is the word I have shared with people this year, “A blessed Christmas and a New Year full of grace.” If you can get your mind and heart around that greeting, you will be on your way to both joy and happiness.

CHARLES WADE Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

I know people who are happy in the midst of the most trying circumstances. They have a debilitating, long-term illness, but happiness is still a friend to them. They have lost a job or experienced deep sorrow and grief, but they still experience joy. Joy is the deep satisfaction that all is well even though the circumstances are painful or even tragic.

Two hymns come immediately to mind: “It is Well With My Soul,” and “Now, Thank We All Our God.” Both of these hymns were written after great tragedy in the lives of their authors.

Sometimes we say happiness can be taken away, but not joy, because it is the fruit of the indwelling Spirit of God. But most Christians can testify that there have been times when they feel they have been robbed of joy. They discover they must wait for joy to come back to their soul.

Our bedrock joy, the kind that rescues us from despair and keeps us going in the midst of failure or loss, is the joy we sing about: “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”

Jesus said to his disciples as he faced the cross: “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy” (John 16:22).

Happiness is not a destination. It is what happens to you on the way to doing something worthwhile.

If you try to measure it with a happiness thermometer, you lose it right away. Happiness is a tantalizing but ultimately unsatisfying goal. The very things you thought would make you happy leave you feeling empty.

But when you do the good thing, the right thing, happiness shows up. If you want to be happy, go do the right thing. When you only do what you feel like doing, you invite frustration and disappointment. But when you act out your best intentions, happiness joins you on the journey.

Jesus said: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:10-11).

Joy follows obedience. We would like it to be the other way around, and sometimes by the grace of God he does give us joy before we have been fully obedient.

But the joy that brings long-term happiness grows from obeying his commands.

We are loved.