JOY, The Noun

Good morning Lord,

Today, well, yesterday .... at 2am and its dark ...

I made the self-reflection that I do not know joy.

I know hope, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I know contentment, peace, safe, grateful, and many more.

Just not joy.
noun

1.

a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. 

delight, great pleasure, joyfulness, jubilation, triumph, exultation, rejoicing, happiness, gladness, glee, exhilaration, exuberance, elation, euphoria, bliss, ecstasy, rapture. A noun is a part of speech that denotes a person, animal, place, thing, or idea. It a state of being, not an action.

2 Corinthians 4:7-10 describes God's followers as broken clay jars who have God's radiant, joy-filled light shining through them.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side,but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

The dictionary and the Bible have very different definitions of joy ... Lord, I definitely understand and relate to the biblical reference to joy. Looking at both, I have never had that dictionary feeling of joy - jubilation, glee, exhilaration, bliss, rapture.

Have I felt exultation ... for sure. When Your presence is engulfs me. 

Doesn’t everyone want to be happy? God never promises happiness? Can’t I be happy without joy? It’s easy to be happy when I have freedom from suffering, financially secure, and all my relationships are good, but then you have trouble with one or more of these, what happens to the “happiness?” 

 I believe when you have joy, you are also happy. 

You said “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). 

You do promise joy. When? When I see You again! 

You will have “sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22). 

If I don't have joy now .... perhaps, I will have joy later :)

Jesus also says “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27) so “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1).

I can live with this!

Thank you Teresa for provoking thoughtfulness within me to seek out the meaning and purpose of joy.

Thank you Lord!