This one I also wrote a while ago--I am slow to post these days! :)

Happiness vs. Joy:

So not too long ago, I wrote about the difference between sadness and sorrow. And as I read it again today, it felt so incomplete. I felt like it was missing something—something critical. So I started to think and ask God—what am I missing here…

And I just realized it isn’t that I am missing something, per say, it is more that I left it a bit incomplete. I addressed the sorrow and sadness aspect, but I completely left out the other sides of the coins—happiness vs. joy.

I have not truly experienced sorrow in my lifetime. I am grateful for that. God has spared me that. I have felt sadness—and fleeting as it was, it was real. I have experienced a lot of happiness in my life—and sometimes even joy.

Webster defines happiness as “delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing.” Happiness is a good thing. We all need happiness. In fact, we as a culture are obsessed with happiness. There was even a movie called “The Pursuit of Happyness.” (Now, I loved the movie, and it wasn’t what the world would call happiness, which is probably why I loved it so much!) But we are a culture and a world that is obsessed with being happy.

Look at TV ads and magazines—if you just buy this product, you will be happy. No more wrinkles for you. No more _____________ (fill in the blank) for you. You will be happy if you just have this one thing… Really? I have a lot of things, but still am not always happy. Happiness, just like sadness, is like a vapor—here one minute, gone the next.

About 2 years ago, I went out and bought an iPod nano. I was so excited. It was cute, it was green, it was the next big thing. Then, less than a year ago, it was stolen. Out of my car. In my driveway. Yeah. I was ticked off, but mostly that I was stupid enough to leave something as expensive as that just laying about. When I first got the nano, I was so excited—and once buyers’ remorse wore off, I was happy. But did my iPod bring me joy? No—not so much. My happiness with my iPod was contingent on having the iPod. And I didn’t have it for very long. Sigh

So much of life is that way. The only happiness it brings is the happiness you feel when you have it. And too many things can be taken away. Objects—they can be stolen, lost, or broken. Relationships—they can be fractured or broken. Feelings—they can be misleading. Having things doesn’t make life more pleasant. Happiness is based on being “delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing.” Wow.

Now joy—that is something I can get behind. Webster defines joy as “to feel joy; be glad; rejoice.” To rejoice. Hmmm… I love that. Rejoice is a verb. It is an action—a state of being, almost. I can be full of joy in the midst of a storm. It is an action that I can choose to do—or not to do. It is like sorrow in so many ways—it is pervasive. It sinks deep within and colors everything that you see, do and say. Joy, very often is a choice. But how does one choose joy over happiness?

Joy comes from one source—God. Without God, you cannot find joy. God fills you to overflowing with joy—if you let Him. People who don’t know God are looking for that source of joy. And unfortunately, they substitute happiness for joy. They think, quite mistakenly, that happiness and joy are one in the same. Happiness is an emotion based on circumstance. Joy is a state of being despite circumstance. How amazing is that?

As I head off to bed, I am both happy and joyful. I am happy that I have a bed to go to. I am tired—exhausted, really, but yet I am joyful. I am filled with joy from God because I think I have glimpsed my life from an outside perspective. I am not perfect—no matter how hard I try, I cannot ever be perfect. And that kills me.

But you know what? No one is perfect. The only perfect being on this Earth died to save my imperfect soul. If I can’t find joy in that, then I am not looking with the right heart, attitude and eyes. I choose to be joyful because when faced with the reality of who I was before Christ and who I am now, how can I not be? God loves me—hairy warts, stubborn heart (that is sometimes two sizes too small!), and all.