A few years back I started a Facebook account and sought to connect with family from across the country. I also started adding friends from all the different places we had lived and connected with over the years. Every day, I would browse through their posts seeing all the fun and cool things they were doing. While I was eating leftovers, I saw them eating some amazing meals as if they ate like that all the time. Before I went off to work, I saw them out having fun with their friends as if they lived like that all the time. I saw them visiting exotic places and wished I could travel like that. I would see these little snapshots of their lives and then look at my circumstances and wish I could be as happy as they seemed to be in their circumstances.
Then I went back and looked at my Facebook page and browsed through my own recent posts. I saw all the snapshots of my life; places I had visited and events I had been doing — all the cool stuff I wanted people to see about me. Then I wished my circumstances were always as happy as what I had posted.
I heard a speaker recently speak about happiness as a very slippery emotion. I thought, what a great way to describe it. Opening one email can make me very happy, but the next email cause happiness to slip right out of my heart. One friend might bring happiness into my life while another might bring sadness, anger or envy.
We have all heard the phrase from our own Declaration of Independence, that people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We have interpreted that “pursuit of happiness” to mean that the prime goal of my life is to be happy all the time and avoid things that make me unhappy. When that becomes the prime goal of our life, we can make ourselves very unhappy. Friends can make us unhappy, so I dump them. Work makes me unhappy so I quit. School is hard and makes me unhappy so I drop out. My spouse makes me unhappy so I split and find someone else. Trying to hold on to happiness is like trying to hold on to something that so easily slips out of our hands.
I am not advocating we seek unhappiness. But, I am saying that there are things that are more important than the pursuit of our own happiness, which so easily slips out of our hearts. In my pursuit of knowing Jesus as my Savior and Lord, I have come to know the joy of my relationship with God. Part of that joy comes from knowing that God is with me and walks with me every day.
The difference between joy and happiness is that happiness is dependent on circumstances; joy is something we have in our hearts through relationships. If my circumstances happen to bring sadness or disappointment or hurt, my happiness might not be present, but my joy remains because joy does not depend on whether things are going well or not. Joy comes from knowing God is with me and within my heart and life.
The Bible says in the New Testament book of Philippians, (2:1-2) “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.” Joy comes from the relationships we have with God and with one another.
I might have a bad day that brings me much unhappiness, but I know that Jesus will always be there to share my burden. When happiness slips out of our heart and hands, joy remains when it is rooted in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.“
• Daniel R. Wiese is pastor of the Church of the Nazarene. “Living & Growing” is a weekly column written by different authors and submitted by local clergy and spiritual leaders.
