Happiness and Joy.

Until recently, I used to think happiness and joy was the same thing. Often times I would struggle with the various joy scriptures that would tell me that “the JOY of the Lord is my strength.” I would get sad, depressed, angry, and frustrated because I couldn’t find happiness when I was looking for it. Recently, my heart took a big hit. So big, that I found myself crying myself to sleep, well honestly, crying all day long. I didn’t want to be around people, I didn’t want to do anything, and I didn’t want to talk to God about it. In my mind, God was tired of me coming to him about the same thing and would confirm that this was my fault and I shouldn’t have been so naïve and stupid. For days I would just sit in my room all day with the TV on, but not even be watching it. I would be talking on the phone or texting people and not even feel what they were saying. But one day, I heard this voice in my head that said “JOY” and I continued to see the word or hear the word in conversations. I knew that was God speaking to me, so I got on my knees at 1:00 a.m. in the morning and said “what about joy God?” In an instant, I felt this covering over me and cried like crazy.

I realized and understood that happiness and joy is not the same thing.

Merriam-Webster defines happiness as “a stateof well-being and contentment; a pleasurable or satisfying experience.” Oxford dictionaries defines joy as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness; rejoice.” Notice the italics I used. Happiness is a state, an experience. Meaning, it’s temporary. It can be here one moment and gone the next. You experience many states in life: happy, sad, depressed, angry, confused, etc. However, joy is a feeling. We REjoice. The prefix “re” is Latin for “again and again” or ongoing. Joy, therefore, is an ongoing feeling that we can have at all times, through all states that we find ourselves in. You can view happiness as a noun and joy as a verb. You can be happy for no reason because of the state that you’re in. But, with joy, it’s not that simple because you know that you are rejoicing for something in particular.

With joy, you’re being intentional despite your circumstances.

What does that mean? Well, for everyone it’s different. But I can tell you that it doesn’t mean that you can’t cry, it doesn’t mean that you can’t feel pain, it doesn’t mean that you won’t feel sad. But, it does mean that despite it all your joy does not come from that person, place, thing, idea, circumstance, state, etc. It comes from our Father in Heaven. When we are weak, his strength is made perfect. When we look up to Him, cry out to Him and look for the good in everything, we will find our joy. It is when we take the eye off of our circumstance and stop looking at that person to provide you temporary happiness, but instead place it on Jesus that we find ourselves full of JOY!

So, I encourage you, my friend, to REJOICE! Turn on that worship music, get on your knees, write down how God has blessed you, whatever it looks like for you – do it! Because your joy isn’t going to just happen. It’s going to require you to take some action!