Where is Your Joy?

" What has happened to all of your joy?" [Galatians 4: 15]

                                    JOY

Joy is in short supply today. Maybe it has become unfashionable, uncool.

We want to remain straight-faced, unflappable, unreadable. Joy is not self-contained. It spills over, it is gloriously messy.

We are so very busy. We are driven to fill each moment with busyness. We don't want to give up our addiction to productivity for one moment. But relentless busyness is the enemy of Joy.

We are keyed up, wired to devices-- our smart phones, our laptops, the Internet, tablets, instant messages on Twitter, the intermittent lure of "Likes" on Facebook. Media has made us more advanced, more precise. But the media is "becoming" us. We are heading for eyeglasses that allow us to "see" the Internet by voice activation. If we "become" media, we become more like machines. But inescapable mechanization kills Joy. Because Joy is so very human.

Joy is in the real world, not in the virtual world. Joy is in Nature. Joy is in face-to-face contact. Have we killed the real world? Have we killed human contact? Have we killed Joy?

The early Christians were so joyous over the Risen Christ, that others thought they were actually drunk. Maybe they WERE drunk. Drunk with Joy!

Easter gives us the very real promise of Joy. Easter is the grandest, "Yes, but . . .", that the world has ever seen.

Easter confers the Joy of  becoming alive again.

I almost drowned when I was four. Yes. BUT, my mother's arms lifted me up out of that suffocating water and I lived.

In my early twenties, I almost died a violent death at the hands of an attacker. Yes. BUT, I prayed to God to live-- and the attacker stopped trying to kill me.

I can dwell in the realm of death and repeat to myself for my entire life, that I almost died. I can dwell forever in that Dark Place.

OR, I can turn my hopeful face to the Light of my Redemptions. I can live in the Realm of possibilities and hope.

I used to think that I was responsible for creating my own Joy. I do not think that is possible. We cannot manufacture Joy. But we can allow Joy to find us.

Joy resides in such tiny moments, that if we are too busy, or preoccupied, or overwhelmed, we will miss it.

Joy is fleeting, evanescent, ephemeral. I have found Joy in a butterfly that flitted past me. Everyone else was too busy to notice. But I saw it. And it was as if God had winked at me.

I have found Joy in prayer. When I pray and God answers me, He is speaking to ME! Out of all the billions of people in the world, He took time to notice me. What Joy, to feel God in my life!

I have found Joy in simply being with loved ones. No agenda, no itinerary, no productivity goals. Being with the ones whom I love, has invited in laughter, hugs, and peace.

I have found Joy in being in the present. Not dwelling in my ugly past, or worrying about the future.

I find Joy when I cease fighting my life. My life-- ugly, complicated, unruly-- simply IS. Jesus did not fight His life. He did not waste His life trying to defend Himself from his detractors. He simply WAS. The Serenity Prayer says: "Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it." Acceptance brings Joy.

I have described my life as "My Palm Sunday Life". [ March 24, 2013]. It has been a walk towards things I must do.  But those are things that I dreaded. Why can't our lives be more like, "My Easter Life"?  Have we banished Joy? Have we outlawed Joy?

Where is YOUR Joy?

[Related Posting, "Easter Joy", April 23, 2011.]

(c) Spiritual Devotional 2013. All Rights Reserved.



To really see Joy, I have to slow down. I have to go outside.