“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”
Wendell Berry
Most people seem to think joy is something that just happens and only when good things happen. Often they think that one is either a joyful person or not. I think these thoughts are a bit sad and I think they are confusing joy with happiness.
It is true, we are happy when good things happen and unhappy when bad things come our way. But joy does not come and go. It is not dependent on circumstances or events. Joy is not simply emotion like happiness. It is a seed planted within us, and when cultivated over time its roots draw on the well-spring of our heart and it grows. The health and strength of that well- spring requires our vigilant tending and care.
I am usually happy and in good spirits but not always and no one would call me a happy-go-lucky kind of person but there is joy within me. Joy, for me, is the foundation of my life. It wasn’t always so. There were many years when I didn’t know joy, it wasn’t a fact of my life. I denied its presence. I won’t go into how joy became a reality in my life, I will just say it had to do with getting to know and spending time with, you know Who.
Joy is given to each of us.
Being filled with joy is a choice.
That’s a fact!
