Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, June 26, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Joy:
1a: the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires : DELIGHT
1b: the expression or exhibition of such emotion : GAIETY
2: a state of happiness or felicity : BLISS
I don’t know about you, but I find these definitions of joy to be wildly insufficient to the actual profundity of the word. Definition 1a smacks of capitalism or selfishness. We have joy when everything is going well for us or we know we’re going to get what we want. Definition 2 equates joy and happiness, and yet I think there’s a distinct difference between them. For one thing, it’s so hard to define what, exactly, happiness is—it varies so much from person to person and context to context. It’s source is elusive, and it’s experience is often ephemeral.
Joy is so much more than happiness. So much more than a feeling of success or good fortune or getting what we want. Joy endures even through pain—it can exist alongside even extreme challenges. When I was 18 months in recovery, I had a powerful epiphany. I realized, one morning, that all the serious difficulties that I thought had driven me to use food to self-comfort, were exactly as they had been when I walked in the doors (severe marriage issues, kids’ behavioral issues, a friend’s dying child, a church community collapsing, etc.) and yet… and yet, I was experiencing joy in my life. I was finding such enduring strength and goodness in my developing relationship with God, in my fellowship with other addicts, in my being clean from sugar and volume eating. This joy became a foundation for my life, and while there might have been times I did not see it as clearly (even 20 years into recovery, I still have challenges, after all) it is always there waiting for me, and I always get back there.
This, I believe, is the kind of “complete” joy the writer of 1 John is talking about. It’s a joy that finds its source not in worldly experience at all, but in community with God. We are invited into this joy.
What is my experiences of joy in my life? Is it different than happiness? How?
