A Happy song in a minor key called Joy

I love being happy.

I am not always happy. In fact, many days, my children and spouse consider me rather crabby {somehow that happens alot at home}. But they are wrong; even if I was crabby; I was really en route to being happy. Sounds insane, or perhaps, you agree!

We believe our actions and choices and words are aimed at making us, others and the world better, happier. Sacrifices must be made on the way to bliss right?

Just one major flaw in this premise. Happiness has this habit of being elusive. We should all know.

We all have our boxes of 'nearly perfect dates', 'supposedly relaxing vacations' & 'amazing imagined and engineered outcomes' where we have tossed the moments and memories which we wouldn't post on Instagram or facebook about.

I should know - I speak about the subject of happiness.

But can I share honestly here? I'd rather speak on the subject of JOY. Now that's a different moniker.

Joy we've been told is a deeper thing that runs much further beneath the surface. At times it bubbles forth with delightful gurgles; but mostly it is subterranean. Maybe a picture can save me the thousand words I cannot find right now:

Here is a sudden burst of joy erupting forth when the wonder of fireflies buzz around one's little head!

Joy often catches us off guard. 

We are rushing around and suddenly our eye catches sight of the beauty of a flower
We are engrossed in our work when we hear a giggle in the next room
We are walking our usual route when we bump into a dear friend
We are lost in our thoughts when a gentle breeze comes and a playful bird offers us a enlivening distraction

Yet- in each of these instances, we need to choose Joy or we can miss it. We can fail to splash around the refreshing spring of joy that can nourishes us. Rightly, Henri Nouwen reminds us

But choosing Joy can be hard as life comes with many sombre minor notes when what we hoped for, worked for, prayed for, does not happen {soon enough}. Choosing Joy can be hard when our lives are so busy we don't have space . to . notice ...

I find that I forget to choose joy many days and rummage around for some scrap of happiness instead. It is most unsatisfactory!

I forget there is Joy. I am too impatient to wait for it. Every day as I read the news, I am faced with the reality that with all of our advances as a race, humanity continues to confront massive challenges: from Ebola to ISIS. These large issues and our own daily difficulties can easily cause us to mope and lose touch with the gift of Joy.

What we settle for then is happiness of this stripe:

Which is really good and necessary {thanks to all my baking friends for the yummies!}.

But -- we now live in a world where more of us are chronically unhappy. Why is this so? Could it be that seeking to be happy doesn't work; that we were made for Joy and a lesser substitute is like taking an artificial sweetener?

Studies show that happiness and unhappiness are actually two different clines. In other words, doing stuff you think will make you happy will not make you as happy as if you also at the same time deal with what makes you unhappy. Your unhappiness which may be caused by a totally different set of things can leak your happiness.

This is where Joy comes in.

While we muddle about to find out why we are happy or not; there is this gift called Joy.

Joy is built on something larger and bigger; indeed Someone larger and bigger.

For joy is about wonder, awe, grandeur, surprise, reversals, redemption.

Ask the mother who has reconciled with her son

Talk to the man embroiled in  lawsuit who has just received news that the suit has been dismissed

Look at the child who has just been given an ice-cream instead of the cane when he just failed his paper

Listen to someone who just returned from the Grand Canyon or the Northern Lights

These are the big boxes of Joy.

But daily, there are smaller parcels waiting for us to notice and unwrap too.

One of the most surprising places to find Joy is in Scripture! Listening to God speak to us is life-giving and adds to the quotient of joy in the depths of our soul; even if we do not immediately feel it.
Like a filled up petrol tank, we don't immediately go faster; but we soon know we can go on longer.

My son has just walked in. He is moping because his Math homework is making him think so hard. I read this verse in John 15 with him and I ask him,

Who is saying this?
-God
Now, think, when you read your Bible or listened to God, did you hear something that put joy in you?
- Ya, when God tells me He loves me, I feel so full of joy inside. 

{his mood lifts! thank Goodness}

Perhaps you and I need to read and listen more consistently.

Indeed, this past week I found myself drawn to those familiar words Jesus spoke about becoming like children. At once I know why my joy quotient is dipping. I am acting all grown-up again trying to figure out life instead of leaning into Everlasting Arms... Yes it's a paradox friends: we need to grow, we need to solve, we need to wrestle and at the same time, we need to let go, rest, trust.

Just imagine if it were only life on one end of the paradox: all strife and self-dependence! Good grief, then happiness and joy will be all hard-won battle scars. Ouch. Thankfully, it doesn't have to be so.

It's a crazy world, and you and I need Joy to find our song in it. For we do so much want to be happy. So how about these pictures for a start:

animal twins

Single Shot or Double Expresso? To marry or not..

We all long for that wonderful fruit called HAPPINESS.

And there comes a time when that is all tied up with the Q: should I marry?

Today, this question is also asked with shades of 'why bother with marriage at all?'

I read a 'letter' by John Piper that gives a great and high view of both being single and married. Here it is:

" You ask: "What is at all compelling about marriage? Why would we even want to be married?"

The "compelling" comes only from the right combination of internal realities and objective truths about God's design for marriage. When the right combination is not there, marriage is not compelling and should not be. I would say the same thing about singleness.

The objective truths about marriage are primarily God's design:

1. To display his covenant keeping love between Christ and the church, 

2. To sanctify the couple with the peculiar pains and pleasures of marriage,

3. To beget and rear a generation of white-hot worshippers, and

4. And to channel good sexual desire into holy paths and transpose it into worshipful foretastes of heaven's pleasures.

That is a high calling, but it is only compelling if it meets with internal longings for God that lean strongly into these designs.

 The objective truths about singleness are also primarily God's design:

1.     To display the spiritual nature of God's family that grows from regeneration and faith, not procreation and sex,

2. To sanctify the single with the peculiar pains and pleasures of singleness,

3. To capture more of the single's life for non-domestic ministry that is so desperately needed in the world,

4. And to magnify the all-satisfying worth of Christ that sustains life-long chastity.

 That is a high calling, but it is only compelling if it meets with internal longings for God that lean strongly into these designs.

 There is more to marriage and singleness than I have mentioned. But the point is to show that neither I nor the Bible means to say that either is compelling in and of themselves. That is why Paul says, "One has one gift and one another" (1 Corinthians 7:7). I think he means: The internal reality of one person finds one of these powerfully compelling and the internal reality of another finds another powerfully compelling. And I would add: This can change from one season to another.

I don't know which holds out more joys and more hardships. There is no way to know ahead of time, it seems to me. We Christians don't make our choices that way anyway. This would be clear if all singles not only heard the wedding vows, "For better or for worse," but also heard the same words written over singleness: "For better or for worse." Marriage may prove to be gloriously happy, or painfully disappointing. Singleness may prove to be gloriously satisfying or painfully disappointing. Only God knows which it will be for you.

So in the end, your heart really matters. Objectively, we cannot know ahead of time whether marriage or singleness will sanctify us more or honor God more. Does the internal reality of our heart lean us into the designs of marriage or the designs of singleness? That is a huge question and one that only the heart can answer. But it should be a heart well-formed with much Bible and much prayer and much maturity through life and counsel of friends and family.

 That's my best effort. Thanks for caring about being devoted to Christ above all.

Pastor John

He has certainly taken us further down the road than the short-sighted 'will I be happy?' approach we are so familiar with. 

In the end, when we quieten down, we must admit happiness is a state deep within us than a state we find ourselves in. 

And here's a poster for those whose hearts lean towards union:

PS. if you have a poster about Singleness, please share it with us!