Are you happy?

It was a question I was asked the other day, and my answer was that yes I am. Will I be even more happy when the Lord comes through with the promise I have been waiting for, forever? The verse that comes to mind is from Psalm 126:1, 2 “When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongues with singing.” Indeed, I am expecting my mouth to be filled with laughter, and my tongue to sing His praise when He restores my fortunes!

But I would not be telling the whole story, if I did not confess that I also relate very much to a later part of that Psalm which says “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy” (verse 5). What I am saying, is that I have shed many tears, and many times continue to shed tears. But the point is that I stand on his promise, that I shall reap in joy. On top of this, I have learned to push through the tears to the joy that is available when I do this.

There are many differences between happiness and joy. The one that comes to mind this morning, is that when we seek happiness, it is elusive. In fact for the longest time the periods where I could describe as the happiest times in my life, it was only in retrospect that I could say that. Joy on the other hand, can be sought. In fact it is a command “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

With regards to pushing through the tears to joy, there are mornings I wake up and I’m not happy. And at these times I determine to obey the command to rejoice. So how does that work, what does it look like? This was a very question we were asking ourselves at the Fellowship last night.

The first answer that came was “I pray.” Yes, but what do you pray, and how does that work? In the end we all agreed that we came back over and over again to the promises that the Lord had underlined for us individually. It is interesting to note that more than one of us had the very same verse from Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.” And the main ingredient that we got out of this and the other promises we shared, is hope. Coming back to hope, choosing to stand in faith and believe that His promises are true, is a big part of learning to be content in whatsoever state I am (Philippians 4:11). And this state it is, I believe what happiness is all about, but far greater then happiness is joy, and we can have joy even in the midst of trials, temptations and difficulties (James 1:2).

Father, in the end seeking joy, is all about seeking You. You told Abraham “I am your exceedingly great reward (Genesis 15:1)!” It’s all about You Lord, about drawing close, about choosing to trust You, allowing hope to rise that joy will indeed come in my morning. Thank You for helping me in the difficult times to come back to joy. Thank You that is not all up to me, because when I seek to obey the command to rejoice, then You do Your part giving me joy as part of the fruit of Your Spirit. Bless you Lord I thank you Lord and I worship You in Jesus Name Amen