Thursday, March 15, 2018
Choosing Joy
James 1:2
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials …
When you are going through difficult circumstances, the testing of your faith, and others come by and suggest that you should cheer up, or don’t cry, or things would get better, or any of the other seemingly trite stuff that people say, you sometimes smile on the outside but inside you know that they don’t understand.
When we are in our darkest moments it often seems like we are there alone and that no one else really understands what we are going through. Because if they did, they wouldn’t be saying those silly things that sound more like palliatives, designed to dull the pain but not cure what’s really wrong.
Putting the shoe on the other foot, when we are the ones facing someone in difficult straits we don’t know what to say to them. We don’t want to say any of that weak and feeble stuff but struggle to find anything we consider really useful and powerful.
While people who are providing support need to think of the right things to say to others who are in the struggle, there is real value in pushing them to, as we say, cheer up.
The Apostle James opens his letter with an admonition to choose to be joyful in the face of the testing of our faith. James, it would seem, ignores the reality of the consequences of our various trials. He says nothing about the actual suffering, he says nothing about the pain, nothing about the real hardships, nothing about the embarrassment, nothing that suggests that he, James, ever faced real trials.
But the truth is, difficult as it seems, joy is a choice. This is because joy is different from happiness. Without getting to the professional realm of the psychologist we know that, while there is some overlap between the two they start in different places.
Joy is internal, it is a function of what you believe, a function of your worldview, a function, really of your faith. Happiness is external, it is a function of the circumstances, a function of the people and events surrounding you. The difference between joy and happiness is what keeps some persons from going into depression when something bad happens.
Let’s use the extreme example of death to try to understand this. When a loved one dies, we are immediately in mourning, that is a valid and necessary place to be. If you have ever lost someone very close to you, or if you have been involved in grief work, you would know this. Grief is a process that has to play itself out. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4.
However, for some, when someone dies they want to die too. I saw my aunt’s life stop the day my mother died. They had spent their entire lives together. For every day, of the more than 70 years that they were both alive, they lived in the same house, left home together each morning, and for most of the time worked in the same place, and then went back home together. And when one died the other was ready to die too. She lived for quite a few years after but was just alive that’s all. Her world had ended, sickness and age just compounded it.
For others though, as crazy as this might sound, grieving is not the end because they have joy. They have something internal that keeps them alive and wanting to live despite the sadness at the passing of that loved one. They don’t go into despair and depression.
What, then, is the source of that joy? For the Christian, joy is based on our faith in God. We do not mourn as those who have no hope. The sons of Korah, wrote in distress “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.” Psalm 42:5
The Apostle Peter summarised the foundation of our joy this way, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” and on that basis declared that “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,” 1 Peter 1:3,6.
Our faith in God gives us a basis for joy during testing, and this is the choice that we must make. We are not like those who have no hope, we have a living hope.
Larnelle Harris, an American Gospel singer who is not as well know as he should be (he recorded 18 albums, won 5 Grammy Awards and 11 Dove Awards) has a song titled “I choose joy” here is the chorus: “I choose joy / I’ll never let the problems keep me down / ‘Cause the Lord is working all things out / For my good / I choose joy.
We choose joy not because we are in denial, not because we are callous, not because we don’t know what else to do. We, the children of God, choose joy because of the promises of God and our confidence in Him, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28.
The struggle is real but choose joy and wait as God works it out as you place your confidence in Him.
Think on these things:
- If you ever lost a loved one, can you think back now to what it is that brought you through the grief process?
- Are you still grieving over a loss or are you struggling right now with a very difficult situation in your life?
- Do you think that you could choose joy in the midst of trials?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that our faith would enable us to choose joy in face of trials.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex