Join in the Joy
Through the years, I have frequently preached about joy. It is more than an emotion (although it includes emotion); rather, it is a settled attitude, a stable and sturdy approach to life that focuses us on the things that matter now and forever. Joy is much greater and much more powerful than happiness, which is event or circumstance driven. There is nothing wrong with happiness. It is certainly better than unhappiness. Also, we have different personalities. For example, my wife is happy-go-lucky. Of course, she has every reason to be, being married to me. However, not everyone can be married to me. We need something more substantial than happiness; that something is joy. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Psalm 30 is a classic expression of the transformational nature of joy. (Please read the entire Psalm for context.) David covers some of the issues that cause us unhappiness: people who seek to damage us in some way (verse 1), sickness (verses 2-3), pride (verse 7), and personal sin in general (implied throughout, made explicit in verse 10 when David pleads for “mercy”). David’s unhappiness (“weeping” in verse 5) is replaced by a “joy” that overwhelms his understandable feelings of sadness. How can this be? How can we be certain that we can possess this same joy? We will be exploring these questions in detail in days to come. For today, let us be comforted by the fact that our God knows all about our problems, just as He knew all about David’s distresses; and let us be confident that our God is willing and able to provide for us, just as He did for David.