Thoughts about joy
Dear friend,
Isn’t January the worst? Glitter and fireside glow gives way to dank blankets of endless cloud and spring so very far away.
It’s got me thinking a lot about happiness. Especially because the moments of little happy and triggers of old happy are not so easily found: pockets full of shells, warm sun on closed eyelids, fields of flowers... I’m sure you have your own. I have to work much harder to feel happy in the winter. And my true deep soul state is revealed once those little happys are stripped away.
My relationship with happiness is up and down. I think we’ve been tricked into thinking happiness is something we can create, or at least we can manipulate ourselves enough that we can become happy. If we’re not happy it’s our fault. I’ve tried making happy and it was very stressful. No amount of creating opportunities for happiness to show up or making myself very grateful seems to guarantee happiness. It’s just not a given. And I wouldn’t want it to be really. Actually then we’d be numb. Sorrow and anger, and feeling lonely or lost are things that draw me into the human experience. They join my up with other people and connect me with reality. They’ve taught me a lot. So permanent happiness is off the agenda.
But what about joy? The Bible talks about joy, but I’ve been trying to work out how I can pursue joy without just pursuing happiness under a new name. I am unwilling to accept that joy has nothing to do with happiness, but perhaps it is just a part of joy, a shade of joy, a reflection of joy.
“In your presence there is fullness of joy.” Psalm 16:11
Now I’ve been in Gods presence and sometimes I’m happy and sometimes I’m definitely not. Especially in January.
Last week, I was feeling pretty horrendously miserable and sorry for myself. January blues. So after 4 days of specifically not talking to Jesus, I sat down and told him about it. What’s interesting is that as I really brought myself to Jesus, there was a change in me, in the deepest place of my heart. A change in sight. Quite simply, I remembered who I was talking to. And I liked him. And it changed the story I was telling myself. What I felt wasn’t happiness, it was like a “Yes” in my soul. I remembered that I am loved, that I am held. I remembered that I am His. I trusted again that I am where I should be. And this “rightness”, despite and alongside all the other feelings, this is joy. This is the deep happy.
I’ve decided this is definitely worth some commitment. I want to keep that “Yes” hovering in my soul the whole time. It illuminates my happy, it sweetens my sorrow, it transforms my gratitude into worship. I see past the good into his kindness. I see past the pain into his grace.
C.S.Lewis says that “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak... We are far too easily pleased.” (The Weight of Glory, C.S.Lewis) He explains that we should be hungry for ‘glory’ (all the beauty and perfection and elevation and joy of Jesus) as the proper reward of communion with God. Just like it is good to be hungry for marriage as a natural reward when we are in love. I am not committed enough to chasing Jesus, I am too easily pleased with a little taste of joy and that will do. But what if I could carry it with me? What if I could see it in my life more and more?
On the simplest level I suppose joy is enJOYing God. Enjoying him no matter what. That can be practiced. Singing is good. And dancing. I think there is a lot to be learnt from churches especially in other cultures who practice joy. Although I recognise that we don’t always want to be dancing round the kitchen to “joyful joyful”, it seems a good place to start. (This is what I do when I clean the kitchen. I think Jesus loves it.) Catching things to be thankful also helps us become more joyful. Celebrating things with our words is powerful, especially sharing lovely things about God and all he is doing. (Not however at the expense of authenticity. God wants our actual selves to be transformed. Not just the top layer that we share with other people.)
The significant thing about celebrating and gratitude is they lift our eyes. They help us remember the real real. They help us remember His story.
Joy is a lot about imagination I think. I don’t mean escapism, or imagining away the pain in front of us. I think imagination is our most powerful tool for translation. Translating the truth of what God says in the Bible, and letting it change what we see in front of us. We can not see God, but we can imagine him. God has been whispering to me recently about wishful thinking, in answer to a doubt I have that maybe that’s all faith is. He said that I can’t be over wishful. I can’t overestimate how good he is. When the disciples understood the cross properly for the first time they weren’t disappointed that they weren’t getting a king to charge in and vanquish the Romans. They saw that their initial hope wasn’t too big, it was too small. The truth of Jesus’ new kingdom didn’t just about replace their hope, it eclipsed it! Fullness of freedom and depth of life and happy ever forever! So I can’t overplay Gods goodness. And I can remember that I am part of the beautiful story - his story. And it’s going to be better than my most epic version.
“As the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my fathers commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so your joy may be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:9-12
There is a lovely image in here about love. Jesus being loved by the Father; Jesus loving us; us sitting in that love, and then us loving other people with that same love.
My children got some of those sequiny clothes for Christmas that are everywhere at the moment. When they were standing by the door on Christmas Day waiting to leave, Eva’s dress caught the light and sent a spattering of sparkles up the wall. As is always the case, Eva’s joy at discovering her super-power of being a human disco ball, immediately led to Jos’ despair that he wasn’t also covering the wall with spots. “You just need to stand in the light Jos.” I heard myself say. “You are covered in sequins too.”
Once we have accepted Jesus, our identity is different. We are transformed inside. He writes his name across our hearts in sharpie. There is a “Yes” buried in the bottom of our soul. We have sequins on our tummies. But there is a daily choice too. We are reminded to remember. We are invited into the light.
My desire for joy is not too strong, it is too weak. I am not always willing to commit to chasing after Jesus, no matter what. I withhold. And I miss out.
Happiness comes when my eyes see what my heart already knows. I see beauty or kindness or loveliness or good things, and my soul‘s response is “Yes! He was here.”
We are encouraged to make the “yes” louder. To tell ourselves the better story, to tell each other, and everyone else, the better story. The real hero, the real rescue, the real ending. And as we stand in the light, and reflect it to everyone around us (not because we ‘have’ to for payment, but for the sheer joyful pleasure of it), Jesus‘ joy is in us. And when we look one day into his face, when the story is finished, our joy will be complete. And I hear the echo in my soul...“Yes!”
Chasing rainbows
Happiness, you fickle friend.
There is no knowing when you will show up.
We arrange some lovely meeting place
But you disappoint me.
You flakey liar.
I cannot trust your rainbow face.
You are often so thin
I can see through you.
Peripheral joker of refracted light.
When I direct my gaze on you,
You vanish.
I wouldn’t be your friend you know.
Tease.
But I chase you all the same.
Endless waking thoughts
Torture me about what keeps us apart.
You promise to be there but
You are so unreliable.
I give you my peace,
You give me nothing.
Thief.
I withdraw my pursuit of you.
I cannot hold you.
We are done.
I choose another instead.
The one who always shows up.
Who needs no complicated preparations.
The one I can get hold of with both hands
And cling to so desperately tightly.
The one who does not withhold
Or withdraw.
Who makes the real realer.
I will follow after Him.
I will cling to his train.
I will draw near.
There are rainbows scattered
In his wake.
Love Katy x