Confession: I am terrible at coming up with titles or names. Creating a name for this blog, and titles for each post, is more stressful than it needs to be. The Joyful Journey was all I could think of that wasn’t completely lame, but it also means so much more.
I began to compare and contrast the words ‘joy’ and ‘happy.’ When simply looking up each word online, I found something pretty interesting. Joy is a noun, happy is an adjective. If there’s one thing I learned in elementary grammar, it’s that you cannot take a noun out of a sentence. If joy is the subject, you cannot remove the word. Sentences can be formed without adjectives, but all sentences need a noun.
The word joy becomes more than just a noun when reading the Bible; it’s a blessing from the Lord. Psalm 16:11 says, “You [God] make known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence.” When we rest in God’s presence, we receive joy. Therefore, the more we rest in God’s presence, the more strength our joy will have. This type of joy is not based on emotion, feelings, or circumstances. It simply is apart of our lives when we consistently spend time with God. He never promises us happiness, but He does declare joy over us.
A couple chapters earlier, Psalm 14 talks about fools. The chapter describes how fools never call upon the Lord. They are overwhelmed with dread because God is present with the righteous, not fools. These fools weren’t resting in the Lord’s presence, creating fear in their lives and a lack of joy. They could feel something was missing, even though they didn’t fully understand what was missing. We’re impacted negatively and lose joy when we don’t spend time with the Lord.
If you constantly feel a sense of dread or lack of joy, look to what you’re basing your attention, happiness, and thoughts on. If it’s not Jesus, you won’t have true joy. I believe that sometimes we don’t want to call upon the Lord because we want our own way. However, if we’re not receiving joy from the Lord, we will miss a crucial part of our lives. Happiness comes and goes as fast as our emotions watching Atlanta sports (rip). When God gives us joy and since He’s our rock, we won’t be shaken in times of distress. Happiness will fade, but joy is found in the everlasting presence of God.
In trials, we can be filled with joy and rejoice without necessarily being happy. Losing a job is not something to be excited about, but there can be rejoicing in who God is and His bigger plan. We can trust God and rest in the comfort He continually offers.
This blog, The Joyful Journey, has a deeper meaning than I originally thought. Life is a journey. Sometimes the journey is fantastic and sometimes the journey completely sucks. While the journey isn’t always happy, it can always be joyful with the Lord.
The Joyful Journey 