As a “mini ministry” and as a personal accountability tool, I’ve
been working on this blog for the past two-and-a-half years and called it “The Daily
Stumbler.” I decided on this moniker as an expression of who I felt I was in my
faith---a person trying their best, but often tripping over their own feet when
it came to following Christ. My faith has been one of my greatest joys and one
of my greatest struggles, and this blog became an exploration of this wild
journey.
I obviously want my faith to be more joy and less struggle, and in
response to the recent focus of our church on joy, I decided to really explore
what joy truly meant in a biblical context. In my meanderings through
scripture, I found a few recurring ideas:
Joy should be outward and apparent
Joy, throughout the bible, is almost always accompanied by some
elaborate, outward expression. Joy involves good food, laughter, relationships,
music, singing, shouting, dancing. No one just secretly “holds onto” their joy.
Joy is wriggly and vibrant and just needs to burst out and be announced!
Joy is a reaction to blessing and an expression
of gratitude
Do you remember as a kid (or even as an adult!) when you were
handed a brightly wrapped box, garnished with curly ribbons and shiny bows? Do
you remember tearing open that paper to find a gift that you longed for and hoped
for? Do you remember your reaction? For most kids, the reaction to follow
is pure, uncensored joy. They hop up and down wildly! They wrap
their gift-givers in big bearhugs and squeeze them tight, shouting,
“thankyouthankyouTHANKYOU!” They squeal with utter delight and nearly vibrate
with positivity and gratitude.
Well, this is what happened in the bible when people received a
gift from God: Victory in battle. Healing from disease. Freedom from
oppression. An empty womb is filled with life. A good harvest. Undeserved
mercy. Fulfilled promises. Salvation.
Joy is expressing deepest gratitude to God for a blessing.
Joy follows pain
Just as night is brought to a close with dawn, pain is brought to
a close with joy. All of the aforementioned gifts were preceded by pain and
sorrow: War, disease, oppression, infertility, back-breaking work, sin,
doubt-filled waiting, condemnation. It may be cliché to say, but
it’s true: a person can’t know joy without knowing sorrow. The ecstasy of joy
is due to the fact that you were delivered from something.
An example, which pales in comparison to true joy, would be a
person walking with a backpack loaded down with supplies. The pack weighs him
down---the straps digging into his shoulders painfully. While any other person
just walking around feels no keen happiness at that fact, that backpacker—once
delivered from his burden—will feel a sense of relief and happiness for the
ability to walk around unhindered. His body will feel light and free! A smile
and a sigh of relief will cross his lips as he slips the pack off his
shoulders.
In the bible, God assured us of pain, but promised us joy will
follow. Just as the sweetness of sugar is intensified after eating something
bitter, so also is the rush of joy intensified after deliverance from pain and
sorrow.
True Joy comes from God
The interesting thing about my exploration of joy in the bible was
that it wasn't exclusive to the righteous. The bible does say that
all people experience joy in some form. However, it is made clear that the
“artificial joy” experienced by the wicked “is brief, the joy of the
godless lasts but a moment.” (Job 20:5) Joy, in its true, everlasting
form, comes directly from God.
Time and time again, the people who experienced pure joy found it
in God’s Spirit. The Holy Spirit filled them up and let the joy overflow. A
life void of joy is a life void of Spirit. People who were in the
presence of God, or had his Holy Spirit fill them up, found joy that managed to
endure through difficult circumstances. They found that, no matter what, they
had been redeemed and that could never be taken away from them. That was enough
to supply gratitude and joy despite pain or difficulty. Those who experienced
the greatest sorrow in the bible were those who felt forsaken by God. An
absence of God's presence, whether perceived or real, results in an absence of joy.
As a “Stumbler”, I often find myself living joylessly. Sure, I
have those mountaintop “highs” where joy is bursting at my heart’s
seams…however, life sometimes gets in the way. My selfishness and anxieties
creep back into the picture. Before I know it, my heart is filled with worldly
concerns and the Spirit has been squeezed into a corner. If I want to stop
Stumbling and start Leaping with Joy, I need to allow the
Spirit of God to fill me up and possess my heart and thoughts.
When my heart is Spirit-filled and Spirit-led,
joy becomes a permanent expression of who I am in Christ,
rather than being a
temporary response to good circumstances.
I long for the day that I can honestly declare to the world that I
am a “Daily Stumbler” no longer—that my sorrow, doubts, and trepidation have
been permanently replaced by God-given joy. A joy so real and intense that it
assures me of my next step in Christ and radiates from me so brightly that
others are drawn in and compelled to declare “I want what she has.”
