Joy

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything”. That is James 1 verse 2 and 3. To write a letter to brothers and sisters to encourage them and start on such a note is quite unusual. Who tells loved ones to be joyful in suffering? Who tells anyone to be joyful in suffering? This is contrary to what we are used to. When someone is going through hardship, you don’t tell them to be in a good mood, happy or the like, you might try to cheer them up, but you won’t dare say “consider your hardship a thing to rejoice in”. In fact, how can you be joyful while facing trials? These two actions seem to be juxtaposing or completely opposed to each other. However, not so much to James. I believe James had learned a concept that had changed his mind and would change yours and mine as well: it is possible to be joyful yet go through difficult circumstances.

There are many examples in the bible of people, prophets, servants of God who went through hardship yet remained joyful. Joy is a state of mind, it is not dependent on a circumstance, it thrives regardless of the circumstance it is put in. Happiness on the other hand is a feeling which is conditioned upon an action or a circumstance. Unfortunately in our world, we often use joy and happiness interchangeably hence our confusion when we get across passages like the one in James. The bible certainly makes a difference between joy and happiness. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, happiness is not. To be a fruit of the Spirit, it means, it is aligned with God’s ways; it is something that the Spirit desires and the flesh opposes. The more joy you have, the more spirit-filled you are. Joy is not something that you just have one time and then you’re good to go, no, it is something that must be cultivated, that can be cultivated. It is an attitude that you can have regardless of what situation you are going through. Paul tells us to cultivate joy along with other fruits of the Spirit as a way to gratify the Spirit and not the sinful nature. It can be confusing because a fruit of joy is expressed in happiness but that is not all there is to joy.

A great example of a joy filled life is the life of Stephen. It is a short-lived life based on the biblical account yet a powerful one. Stephen is told to be a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5). He was chosen among seven other men to handle the distribution of food during the early ministry of the apostles as the church was growing. He was a man who was found worthy enough to help solve a problem that was present in the church. He was full of God’s grace yet was falsely accused by his enemies. He was put in trial simply because he had a wisdom that surpassed that of the men around him. Moreover, the Holy Spirit was performing powerful miraculous signs through him. This caused many men to be jealous of him, to the point of stoning him to death. But what we are told is that when Stephen was being stoned, he cried out to God saying, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”. I don’t know about you, but a joyful spirit is what I see in this Stephen, being “full of the Spirit” meant he displayed all the fruits of the Spirit in his life, at least that’s what I infer from that phrase. Can you imagine what sort of man he was to be able to die a martyr and still wish the welfare of his enemies? Definitely a joy to be around.

Another joyful person in the bible was Ruth. If anyone had reasons to not be joyful it was certainly Ruth, she was a foreign widow who married a Jew and was now living in hostile Israel among her husband’s people. She had no child, no inheritance, and she was not welcomed. Despite the challenges that she faced, the bible does not depict in her an attitude contrary to having joy, in fact what we see is that she was perseverant, she was humble, she was hard working, she was patient, faithful and loyal. You see, the moment Ruth told her mother-in-law Naomi that she would be going with her wherever she went, adding to it that she would also serve the God of her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16), she actually meant it and that changed everything about her life. Ruth exuded such a spirit-filled life that Boaz noticed her and eventually married her changing the course of her life forever, and God gave her the privilege to be part of Jesus’ lineage.

I would be amiss if I did not mention Jesus the perfect example of a joy filled life. Despite all the challenges and the suffering he endured and had to go through for us, Jesus was full of Joy, he was always filled with the Spirit. You see, it is possible to go through difficulties and still have joy. Our joy comes from knowing Christ. He gave it to us so that our joy may be complete (John 15:11). We are able to be joyful because we know who we are in Christ, we reflect God. Indeed, when Christ died for us on the cross, he gave us a new identity, “the old has gone, the new has come”. We are now rejoicing because of what God has done. Let us therefore continue to cultivate this attitude and character trait that we have been given as children of God.