Is Joy more spiritual than Happiness? 

I grew up happy with parents who loved me and sisters who doted over me. I was bullied just a little in high school when I started growing in my faith but still enjoyed sports and going out with friends. I went off to college, became a nurse, got married, and started my adult life.  Somewhere along the way I started to believe I was less spiritual if I wanted to continue to be happy. I reasoned it’s because happiness is based on circumstance, and joy is a fruit of the Spirit. So if I was truly spiritual, I would pursue joy not happiness. As if being a Christian meant wanting to be happy was bad.   

Then the terrible worst happened and my firstborn son died tragically. I spent a good amount of time in the pit, but eventually what I learned on my grief journey was that joy was a byproduct of thankfulness and love. The more I chose to be thankful and then reach out in acts of love, even though my own heart was broken, the more the Holy Spirit produced the fruit of joy that found a way to coexist with the sorrow that threatened to overwhelm me. Joy really could exist in spite of the tragic circumstances. It was hearty enough to sing a melody so that the sorrow didn’t take as much space as it used to.  

But being happy? Was I allowed to ever be happy again? If grief was the price of love, how could I even contemplate being happy? I had resolved that I would never truly be happy again. And strangely I was okay with living that way for the rest of my life. After all, I had joy.  

I made a deal with God 

I made a deal of sorts with God. If He continued His part of producing joy to coexist with the sorrow I was feeling, I would choose to live until I was about 80. And I mean really live, all in, every day getting up and giving it my best shot. But when I turned 80, I wanted Him to bring me Home. Even though it still felt like a long time, this seemed like a reasonable deal to me. Considering there were many days I struggled to go on, I felt like I was being generous. 

Can you just imagine the Sovereign God of the Universe? He already numbered my days. Who was I to tell Him how many I would give Him? Thankfully my Heavenly Father is longsuffering and His steadfast love endures forever.  

God did the miraculous 

Then the completely unexpected happened. In His due time, He decided in His goodness to lift the heavy cloud of grief that previously threatened to unleash a storm of terror without any notice. It was weeks before the ninth anniversary of Nicholas’s death. I was reliving the horror of the tragedy and crying out to God, yet again. Even though my head knew it wasn’t possible, my heart was hoping for a different outcome – this time. Then, suddenly, AS I was crying out, the Lord released me from the crushing hold of grief’s grip! 

At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening. I could physically feel the heaviness lifting. It’s as if God was saying He used this tragedy to do a work in me that otherwise would not have been completed. And since that time, I can breathe and not feel pain, inhaling deeply and letting it out slowly. I can see in color. And I can laugh and not feel guilty. Can it be that I am actually feeling happy?  

Blessed is the man 

That brings us to Psalm 1 from Day 28 of The 40-Day Feast. It begins with Blessed is the man…In Hebrew this word for blessed refers to a person’s state of bliss and is elsewhere in the Old Testament translated happy¹. My pastor, Tom Richter, spoke on Psalm 1 at the beginning of this year. Is Happiness Possible? – Psalm 1. He says the Bible is not ashamed to talk about happiness, “If you want happiness, come and get it.” 

Psalm 1 says the truly happy person finds his happiness as he delights in and meditates on the Law of the LORD, as if being truly satisfied is because he goes back for second and third helpings.  

What is the result? He will be like a fruit yielding tree that doesn’t wither because it’s planted by streams of water, where the roots grow deep.  If I apply this to myself, I will prosper because I am planted by the source of the power. How fruitful I am doesn’t depend on me. It is produced when I am planted in God’s Word and give His voice priority.  

What will keep him from being happy? Walking in wicked counsel, standing with sinners, and sitting with scoffers. Again, if I apply this to myself, I am influenced by the world when I go with the flow because I don’t have the energy to think too much about doing otherwise. Soon the world’s ways start to blend in until I can’t tell the difference between Truth and lies. I am tempted to become cynical of what God intended to be good. That’s not what I want. 

God knows the end of both the wicked and the righteous. If I want to be counted with the righteous, then I will keep on desiring the riches of God’s Word more than anything. That’s what will lead to lasting, blissful…Happiness. 

Blessed is the man 
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, 
nor stands in the way of sinners, 
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 
²but his delight is in the law of the Lord,     
and on his law he meditates day and night. 
³He is like a tree 
    planted by streams of water 
that yields its fruit in its season, 
    and its leaf does not wither. 
In all that he does, he prospers. 
⁴The wicked are not so, 
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 
⁵Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, 
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 
⁶for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, 
    but the way of the wicked will perish. 
Psalm 1 ESV 

¹Warren Baker, D.R.E. and Eugene Carpenter, PhD, The Complete Word Study Dictionary of The Old Testament. AMG, Chattanooga, 2003.