Joy - A Chapter From My First Book
Here is the third chapter from my self-published book, The Fruit That Turns The World Upside Down. I plan on sharing two more chapters after this to celebrate its second anniversary.
3. Joy
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
John 15:11
The Wonder of Joy
As he was recovering from a heart attack, Rabbi Abraham Heschel looked at his friend and said, “Sam, never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.”[1] Heschel’s reflective statement makes me think he also experienced a life full of joy. I am also a chronic wonderer, and I don’t apologize; I often feel joy in my wondering. Anna, my wife, is constantly catching me staring off into space because I am thinking about something theological. As a child up to my mid-twenties, my wonder was reserved for daydreaming about fantastical scenarios where I would somehow be the hero. In one particular fantasy from my youth, my school was on fire. As I ran down the hall to escape the flames, I heard a voice from the stairwell crying out for help! I run towards the stairs, finding that a portion in the middle has collapsed, and the girl I have a crush on is hanging from a section on the other side above the flames. I make the monumental leap and save her just in time! My crush then realizes how handsome I am and wants to be my girlfriend.
Those moments of daydreaming were often distracting, and when I think back on what I used to wonder about, it seems like I may have been holding myself back and creating a sense of entitlement while refusing to deal with the world as it is. Now, however, my wondering is mainly reserved for God. I’ll admit that from time to time, okay, weekly, I may miss my turn because I’m wondering about God. I may miss my turn, but wondering about God always leads to more of him and less of me. Counterintuitively, I grow spiritually because of that process. The church father, Gregory of Nyssa, found this true, especially when he noticed people got too bound up in claiming certain doctrines to be infallible, which is dangerous. Nyssa says, “Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.” God has certainly brought me to my knees a time or two through the gracious gift of wonder, but he’s done it for others across time as well.
Grateful Joy
Something else happens with joy; I become more grateful for what God has given me, whether it be family, friends, a job, or whatever is good in my life. The more appreciative I become, the more I want to express my gratitude toward God. The more I pour out thanksgiving, the more joyful I become. It would seem then that thanksgiving is a door to a life of joy. I remember a season of joy very well around my daughter’s birth. I couldn’t stop thanking God for everything and anything. Because of that, I felt so much joy, which lasted for months and translated into happiness.
Now and then, I hear sermons on how to define joy, or someone on social media posts an article about how to describe joy because we’ve all been guilty of explaining it wrong for years. I get most annoyed when people say that happiness is not the same as joy because happiness is a feeling. The two may not be the same, but joy is definitely a feeling, and it’s also an action. Sometimes, both contexts of the word are used in the same verse (1 Peter 4:13)! The most helpful definition I’ve discovered is that joy is the feeling of victory or the act of being victorious.
Victorious Joy
I had to use my imagination to understand how joy is victorious. It’s just that when I read verses and passages in the Bible about joy, it seems like the person or people experiencing joy are experiencing victory. Take, for example, the shepherd from Matthew 18:13 who goes out looking for his lost sheep; the verse says that he leaves the ninety-nine, and when he finds the one lost sheep, he rejoices over that one more than the ninety-nine. The shepherd experienced a victory by finding what was lost, communicated through rejoicing.
How about a weirder example? When Peter and John were whipped in Acts 5 for preaching the Gospel and healing people, they rejoiced because they got to share in the suffering of Jesus. Rejoicing over suffering is weird to me, and I’m willing to bet it was strange for their persecutors to see as well. If you look at a lot of other passages, though, you will see a pattern. Many of the people experiencing joy are being delivered from some difficult trial, either physical or spiritual, or both (Luke 13:17, Acts 15:31), experiencing joy because of the work of God who has removed or got them through the hardship (Matt 5:11–12, Jas 1:12). In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, Jesus even uses joy as a reward that’s earned the ones who’ve used the master’s resources wisely and faithfully. These experiences of joy all contain victory.
The victory I’m talking about isn’t a self-help version of victory. The kind of victory we see in biblical joy is a supernatural resistance to the oppression of the powers and principalities at work in a fallen world and in people. Joy is the victory that states God has the final say in his children’s future. Yet, in some of those passages I’ve listed about joy, it only gets experienced after some arduous work. The trials should save us from having a vindictive attitude towards those who’ve hurt us while helping us be more grateful when the trouble is over. Easily won things aren’t treasured for long, but the hard-won victories are remembered for generations.
Hard work isn’t easy, obviously. Enduring isn’t easy, either. So, what helps us survive this work and experience joy? Richard Foster answers that what produces genuine joy is obedience.[2] Foster’s insight is challenging. How in the world does obedience cause us to endure difficulties? I think the words of Jesus himself provide what we need to know. In John 15:14, Jesus says to his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Jesus commands us to do what is commanded of him by the Father. So, when we do what Christ commands, we are fulfilling God’s will, and Jesus assures us that we will bear the fruit of that work (14:16). Our obedience is a sign of abiding in Christ, and when we abide in Christ, though the world may cause us trouble, we are safe in our friendship with Christ who has overcome the world. So, our obedience to Christ leads to strength, and the strength of God leads to joy.
The problem that prevents us from accepting joy as something we must work for comes from pesky little sayings like, “God never gives us more than we can handle.” I’m sure this statement has been tackled before, but now it’s my turn. The idea is entirely unbiblical. Firstly, it assumes that God is the source of our troubles rather than the problems arising from human agency. Some of those instances are the outcome of something we did or something stupid someone did to us. Secondly, it downplays suffering. God cares greatly about despair, as Psalm 34:18 tells us, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit” (emphasis mine). In Luke, Jesus cites the prophecy of Isaiah regarding his purpose, which says,
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn. (Isaiah 61:1-2)
God is actively working to preserve us. But another thing is that many Christians, as well as all of humanity, face more than we can handle; that’s why people suffer from mental breakdowns and die. Indeed, what caused us to die is more than we can take.
Delayed Joy
The question is, can we still find joy amid heartbreaking and crushing circumstances? I believe the answer is yes. My wife, Anna, is one of those women who, for her whole life, knew that the only thing she wanted to be was a mother. While dating, she once told me she wanted at least six to nine children. I kept waiting to see if she was joking, but I was surprised to find Anna very serious. As a little girl, she had a bunch of dolls she treated like her children, but she also babysat newborns overnight before the age of twelve. I think that last part is wild, but my wife loved it. At the beginning of our marriage, Anna would often volunteer to babysit the infants of our family members, much to my chagrin, but whatever. However, as soon as we were married, we started trying to conceive.
My wife would buy pregnancy tests month after month, thinking each missed cycle was the sign she’d conceived. Yet, each month, she was disappointed with a negative test. After about six months of frustration, she booked a doctor’s appointment to try and get some answers. Anna was first told that she was still young, that there was no rush to have a child, and that we should sit tight and see if it sorted itself out (If you’re a doctor reading this who specializes in OB/GYN, please stop saying this to women because most in this position don’t want to be soothed, they want answers). It didn’t work itself out.
When we found more competent doctors, they discovered that Anna had a significant PCOS case, which is why she’d never had a regular cycle in the first place and was feeling symptoms of a false pregnancy. They also told us that the scar tissue caused by her PCOS would make it challenging but not impossible to conceive. After three years of trying to manage the PCOS with medication and many people close to us praying, we still hadn’t conceived a child. My wife grew increasingly desperate, and I, who tried to be encouraging, was starting to run out of suggestions, making it difficult to discern what was happening. We were beginning to reach the end of our rope; I think Anna was there already. If you’ve ever talked with a woman who’s infertile, you may know something about the despair they’ve felt. The women walking through infertility want to be joyful for their friends announcing their pregnancies, but they’re struggling to be genuine because they want that same joy for themselves. What’s worse is when they know someone who wasn’t even trying to get pregnant because they want it so bad, and it’s not happening. They truly understand the feeling of the expression, “life’s not fair.”
We attended a small Pentecostal church near us during that third year of infertility. It was a little too Pentecostal for me; I can be very stoic, but like any good Pentecostal service, the pastor called people up to the altar to receive prayer. Anna and I decided we were going up there; at this point, we wanted all hands-on deck to help us deal with our situation. After telling the pastor we were struggling with infertility and how long we’d been having issues, he called the congregation’s attention to us for prayer. He then did something I did not expect; he prophesied over us, saying we’d be pregnant within a year. It was an edifying experience, but I, being the skeptic, took it with a grain of salt.
About ten months or so later, Anna had still not gotten pregnant. I had no answers for her, and I wondered if God was deliberately putting us through this trial. At Anna’s next doctor’s appointment, they said one of the following steps we could take before we had to consider in-vitro was something called Clomid. Initially, I was hesitant because I’d read many stories about multiples born due to the mothers having taken Clomid. The idea of having multiple kids born at once was terrifying, but the doctor assured me that the chance was meager and to stop being silly. So Anna agreed, and the doctor prescribed her Clomid.
On August 31st, 2014, Anna came rushing down the stairs and said, “look at this!” I was in the middle of waking up, and she was shoving a positive pregnancy test in my face! After four long years of trying to conceive and failing, we rejoiced; we felt victorious! We could chalk it up to a victory of science, maybe it was, but the day that the pastor prophesied was September 1st, 2013. We were one day shy of that prophecy expiring, but we were pregnant within the year. The prophecy being fulfilled was another reason to be joyful. God was faithful in keeping his promise, and the victory was sweet. Our daughter’s middle name commemorates the faithfulness of God, and it celebrates the church’s name where we received the prophecy.
Providential Joy
The joy of that moment was made complete by something else, though. One of the temptations about our situation is pulling it apart and analyzing why we conceived. Was it because of God? Or was it because we relied on medical science? Those are the wrong questions to ask. A better question might be: How does God work in the world to fulfill his promises? It’s a mistake to think that God will only work supernaturally because we forget the wisdom that God has weaved into creation and his creatures. After all, Proverbs 8:22–31 says that wisdom was with God before creation but also intrinsically part of creation. The fall of humanity may have diminished how well we can see God’s wisdom, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The advances in science or medicine that genuinely help God’s creation are a sign of that providential wisdom either being slowly or subconsciously revealed to show that God’s work and blessing are not just bound to one supernatural realm. God is Lord of all. We can take joy in that. I see how victorious we can be because of that, but it also shows me how victorious God is, which is joyous. When I think about this joy, I am again back in the wonder of God, and the wonder of God overflows and causes me to glorify his name.
The late New Testament scholar William Barclay says that joy has its foundation in God. He also says that joy doesn’t stem from overcoming someone through competition.[3] Barclay’s statement is interesting because I’ve just explained that joy is victory. But if we remember that “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” we can know that the victory we experience in joy is indeed sourced in God and not the things of this world.
Having Joy is not just having victory, then. Joy is the victory we experience in God being glorified, and God’s glory leads us to joy. The joy that Anna and I felt towered over the despair of infertility. Even though we experienced a heaviness during that time, we also took joy in raising my firstborn, watching him grow, and teaching him what he needed to know. We also took joy in caring for our nieces and nephews and caring for the children of our friends. Instead of letting despair overcome us, we found joy where we could, and God had it for us in abundance. That is why I say that joy is also a holy resistance to the things of this world that seek to crush us. Joy is the present victory of God for his children, and it also points us to the final victory of his second coming.
Even so, joy is best experienced in gratitude toward God. Brennan Manning points out that gratefulness is the root of joy and that thankfulness is anchored in the fact there is “Someone” to thank.[4] Manning wonderfully points out how Jesus’ prayer life was steeped in expressing gratitude through his Jewish upbringing and intimate relationship with the Father. Through a life lived in grateful prayer, Jesus could take the cup he needed to drink from, but I imagine he also saw the joy set before him when he defeated sin and death and ushered in the kingdom of God.[5]
The gratitude that connects us with God reveals God’s beauty in creation. We can enjoy simple things like a calm harbor with gulls circling over it and crying out, the way the trees create beams of light while the sun filters through them, or hearing our children laugh and hear our spouses sing. Joy is simple, but joy reflects an infinite God who wants us to participate in his joy, victory, celebration, and wonders.
Thank you for reading. I have revised and re-released my book, which you can find on Amazon. I believe in my work and think it provides a timely message, especially for Christians in the US. Click the link if you’re interested in taking a look.
[1] Brennan Manning, The Raggamuffin Gospel (Multnomah Books: Colorado Springs, 2015), 75.
[2] Richard Foster, Celebrations of Discipline (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1989), 242.
[3] William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 60. I’ve pulled a lot of the definitions from Barclay’s study. I find them to be extraordinarily insightful and even simple but in a way that leads to gold.
[4] Manning, Ruthless Trust, 33.
[5] Ibid.