Sunday Spice #7: Happiness vs Joy

Today I’m taking time to talk about the difference between happiness and joy. It is not an easy thing to comment on, except there are some basic differences that, I believe, will help us understand it all better.

In general, we are all happy when good things are happening around us and to us. However, when those things stop happening, we can lean toward a less-than-happy attitude or maybe just not happy at all. Happiness is affected by external things and it’s no surprise that those things can change in a moment’s notice. So, it is fair to say that our level of happiness is sometimes dependent on happenings. It’s not always that simple but this is the starting point of this episode of today’s Sunday Spice.

The pursuit of happiness is a God-given right according to our Founding Fathers along with Life and Liberty. It’s not happiness that is a God-given right, but the pursuit of happiness. Some political philosophies will promise to deliver happiness, which is impossible; but other more wiser politicians introduce policies to protect our pursuit of happiness. I appreciate this kind of common sense. Our Founding Fathers had the same common sense of which I speak and is why they had the prudence to call this God-given right a pursuit.

Happiness, as wonderful as it is, can morph into something fleeting and unpredictable. But there is everything right about pursuing it—and enjoying it.

I make a difference between happiness and joy because joy is listed as a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter five. So, if I treat it as a fruit then I cannot always assume it easily exits if something bad is happening. Right? I come to this conclusion because if fruit exists, what we know is that the bad things that happened to it, and the tree on which it grew, were not always pleasant. Multiple storms, winds, and infestations could very well have been in its history. The very fact that the fruit exists is strong evidence that it had the staying power to withstand negative occurrences. So, because negative things can happen to me, which might put my happiness in jeopardy, there can still be present a fruit called joy that gives me the strength to withstand the adverse or the tragic.

Nehemiah 8:10 says that “the joy of the Lord is my strength.” When strength is the first thing that tries to leave you when sad things are happening; the joy of the Lord helps to renew that strength and help sustain you as you pass through an unfortunate set of circumstances. Such joy helps create the kind of focus and strength you need to forthrightly address those circumstances.

When my daddy died that certainly represented the most devastating event of my life. I can assure you all my happiness left me that day. It returned very slowly. And to this day my happiness wanes when I think about my loss. I’m not the only one who has had this happen. You, too, have had a story to tell when you received the kind of news that makes your happiness take a quick exit. However, present that day and throughout the weeks, months, and years that followed; for me and my dear mother there still remains a “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 

I borrow those words from the Bible “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” But why is such joy present when all the happiness is gone? Because a work of the Holy Spirit had helped to establish that joy in both our hearts and lives long before the tragedy of that day. Plus, add in the heaven my daddy gained; the promise that I will see him again; an eternal focus worked by the Holy Spirit, and what we have is a joy which is present internally as a quality worked in me by God Himself.  Such a quality overflows to help restore my happiness as well. 

A genuine joy remained in us because we did not have a hopeless sorrow. Both our hope and our joy were based on things spiritual and things eternal.

I wish on you the best of happiness, but because I know such happiness can teeter under the harshness of life and its unpredictabilities, what I would like to also point you to is the joy of the Lord; a quality, or a fruit, that is worked into your life by the Holy Spirit and lover of your soul.

I’m Tammy Reneé, and this is Sunday Spice. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed are the people who take refuge in Him!