Happiness vs. Joy

As we begin our study of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, I have been compelled to think about the difference between happiness and joy. Voskamp challenges us to live a life of thanksgiving. She connects thanksgiving to joy and joy to to living fully right where we are.

I got to thinking about the plethora of literature that's been generated in recent years about happiness. A website called Happiness Club lists the top 20 books on happiness. Amazon and Goodreads both have lists and lists of books about Happiness. I've read a few of them myself. Most notably, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, where I learned that Happiness is about learning to simplify, organize my closets, and have more fun. Clearly, we live in a culture where we are longing for something. We call it Happiness, but I'm convinced we are really after Joy...because we are after something that can only come from outside ourselves...ultimately, God.

For an interesting little read on the Greek words for Happiness & Joy, check out this article: Joy or Happiness?

Happiness is the great feeling that you get when everything is going smoothly. Joy is what God gives you in the midst of trouble when you put that trouble in God's hands. Both happiness and joy have no fear. Happiness has no fear because nothing is wrong, and everything is on course. Joy has no fear because we have become willing to trust God that our suffering is serving a purpose -- a purpose that we have come to want more than anything else. Another way we might put it is that we have happiness BECAUSE of our situation, we have joy IN SPITE OF our situation. With happiness, fear and destruction might be just around the corner. With joy, the very things that others fear have become, in God's hands, a means of salvation. Fear, the greatest weapon of evil, has lost its power. It's what the Cross is all about.