Walking with the Wise #209: The Journey to Joy
“A glad heart makes a cheerful face,
but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.”
—Proverbs 15:13
but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.”
—Proverbs 15:13
God made us to pursue joy. There is something intrinsic to each one of us that causes us to pursue that which would make us joyful. As Blaise Pascal once wrote,
“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves”[1]Man is looking to experience God, but because of his fallen nature, he is looking for it in the wrong place, as G.K. Chesterton put it: “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.”[2]
The joys we experience in everyday life, e.g. eating, drinking, making love, only point to the true and lasting joy that can only be found in God. The truest object of our joy is God Himself, as we were made for knowing Him. Or as John Piper has so eloquently and profoundly said, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” We are to find our joy in God.
Jesus exemplified this pursuit of joy in God, and we are to have this same pursuit, as the Bible tells us
“...looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God”—Hebrews 12:2.When we find true and lasting joy it will be written upon our hearts and will make its way to our face in our everyday life. Being joyful doesn’t mean we don’t sorrow, or experience difficult days: it means that the overall tenor of our life is joyous because there is life in us—significance and purpose which is found in and through knowing Jesus Christ.
On the opposite side of joy is sorrow. Joy gives life, but sorrow takes it away. The deeper the sorrow, the more tired the spirit; the greater the joy, the more life is given. If we want to have true and lasting joy, then we must go to God. He must be our highest aspiration and deepest satisfaction, and when He is, the earthly sorrows do not weigh us down as heavily. We are able to live the reality of the psalmist: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning”—Psalm 30:5.
Where is your joy? Is it tied to this world? Or is it found in God? The pleasures of this world can only point to the truest, most lasting, and overwhelming real pleasure that is found in God and in Him alone. Let joy be your pursuit, for His glory and your joy. Amen.
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