Happiness vs. Joy

I recently read this phase on the internet:  The search for true happiness can be like chasing the wind or trying to hold water in your hand.  

These two tasks are nearly impossible.  Wind can’t be caught and the hand eventually will spill its liquid to the ground.  Happiness is often short lived and fast moving, and determined by our outward circumstances. 

If good things are happening then we're happy; financial security—happy, popularity—happy, healthy—happy.  As long as the road is level and smooth we are happy, but when we hit a bumpy road-look out-happiness can be fleeting.   

 

Joy is something God puts in our hearts, and it's not affected by our external environment.  You can have the joy of the Lord in the most difficult of circumstances.  Your happiness may be affect by loss of employment or a bad report from the doctor, but the kind of joy that Jesus prays over us in John 17:13 is that we would have His joy—internal and unaffected by the troubles of life.

 Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.”  John 17:13 NIV

Here’s a promise to hold on to—you aren't always going to be happy, but a life truly rooted in Christ will always know joy—His joy.