Joy Pt.1

Joy is an interesting thing. We gauge our lives by our wealth of or lack of joy. We wonder at those things that produce it and those things that rob us of it. But what is it? My dictionary says, “A feeling of great pleasure and happiness” but my head tells me it’s more than that.
It’s a limited definition, if we take my dictionary’s word; we are limited to our feelings, the waxing and waning of emotion in the gusts of life. Quite frankly it’s unsustainable. John Piper would say joy is forgetting yourself in awe of something bigger and grander than you like the Alps, or a sunset, or God. But even that seems unsustainable to me.
I cannot always marvel at grandeur. Maybe it’s just me, but my head quickly becomes accustomed to the altitude and my heart quickly grows faint of the light and I return to where I began, lacking joy… And yet, it remains. Though I lack the swelling of joy, joy still remains, however small my portion may be, it’s still there, for there is grace.
Grace and joy walk hand-in-hand like lovers down a lane, inseparable. Often this is forgotten for want of resplendence. Rather than taking joy in the ordinary things, we reach continually for the heavens. We wear out our arms by grasping at splendor and we tire our legs by running from grandeur to grandeur. But we must be treading lightly. For if we do not keep a close watch the ordinary graces in life will turn into mud-pies in the slums rather than being sand-castles by the sea (Lewis).
So we look to the graces in our lives, those things we don’t deserve; which is all of life, to be joy filled. For in these ordinary things we are reminded of an extraordinary deed. We live and breathe because God was gracious to us in the Gospel. We see and hear because there is life in our hearts and souls. So though we often feel like we are absent and void of joy, by God’s grace, we must remember God’s grace for in so doing we find joy.