In the very first post of this series, 3 looooong weeks ago, I covered an introduction breaking down that emotions are a quick, physical reaction to a situation, while feelings are more of a long-standing thing that can envelope you. The Bible says we are made in the very image of God; the One Who created us is more than capable of handling feelings and emotions that are part of Who He Is, and that He made us with! (Note: I spent 2 weeks on Joy, and spent the second half of that second week discussing Sadness, so I’m not too far behind in these posts, but I didn’t want to include my notes on Sadness and have this be stupidly long, LOL)!

The most important thing in the introduction that I want to reiterate throughout, is that God Is Able to handle our transparency, and He loves us to share with Him what He already knows according to Psalms 139:1-4

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
 you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
 you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
  you, Lord, know it completely.

He absolutely knows how we feel. He has compassion, empathy, & a heart that loves us unconditionally. Encountering that love leaves us with a true desire to be 100% authentic with Him (and that transparency undoes the enemy, because that fool is the father of lies!). Transparency in sharing our hearts, emotions, feelings, desires, etc., with the Lord is a weapon that gives us deep, deep roots through the storms of life. Messy or not, we are the children of a loving Father Who never hesitates to hold us in whatever state we are in.

Joy is defined by the dictionary as a “feeling of great happiness.” What a crock. Happiness is a fleeting emotion that requires constant feeding. If you feed something constantly, you ultimately wind up with it exhausted with indulgence, ready to explode, & spiraling in the inevitable crash/burnout! (I love Snorlax, because he’s kind of the perfect picture of that, isn’t he?!?)

Happiness is a feeling that tends to be externally driven. It depends on situations, events, and other people aligning with your expectations. It’s future-oriented: you’ll be happy when you get the job, find the relationship, or reach the goal. Joy is more internal and less dependent on circumstances. It can exist alongside difficulty.”

Joy is a choice; it is a disciplined state that you can maintain even in the midst of pain. Joy is dependent upon the hope we have, that God is eternal and His character is unchanging! Because He remains, Joy can remain.

In the movie Inside Out, Joy & Sadness are partnered up as Sadness tries to take over & Joy feels the need to establish dominance. Joy doesn’t understand that her existence is actually made even brighter by the contrast of Sadness, not darkened when Sadness is near. Sadness and darker times solidify the truth of Joy in our lives; the desolate times make the spark of Joy have even more depth. This is impacted by our willingness to be transparent, as transparency →the acknowledgment of hard times→expressing our pain to God→Watching Him move with us, thru us, and beyond us, to sustain us & see us thru to the other side in His time. 

The Psychology Today article by Dr. Jamie D. Aten, Ph.D., titled, “What is Joy and What Does it Say About Us?” features an interview with Dr. Pamela King. In the interview, she speaks about the actual science of joy, & covers 3 areas that “deeply inform joy:”

1. Growing in authenticity & living more into one’s strengths
2. Growing in deep relationships & contributing to others (this is only possible when we’re authentic with ourselves & with others. Transparency again, leads to deep roots!)
3. Living more aligned with one’s ethical and spiritual ideals

I love that all of the words she chose to describe growing in joy, are -ing words. They’re Being Verbs—BEEEEEEEEEEEING! Human BEEEEEEings! Joy cannot grow from a place of stasis! Stasis = Death. Think about it–nasty, stagnant water is a breeding ground for disease. Yes, it can develop its own ecosystem of decomposition, but nothing there is good. We are made in the image of God as Human BEings by a God Who’s literal Name is I AM. We. Have. To. Exist in a state of action verbs! Our lives, our successes, and our joy requires either action verbs or DEATH. It’s amazing!

So, this small group study I’m writing is titled, “All the Feels: The Facets of Feelings through the Facts of Faith.” This means I want to look at the people in the Bible who went through each emotion, and we’re discussing how they handled it, both good and bad. How can we apply these lessons and processes to our lives? Let’s take a look at a few:

1. Paul, while in prison & thru so many trials!
   1. Phil. 1:3-6, 18-26
   2. Acts 16:25-34
2. Mary
   1. Mary’s Song: Luke 1:46-56
   2. Side note: In the same chapter, Elizabeth’s son John “leaped for joy” in the womb when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting! Even in the womb, we know true joy, spirit-to-spirit!
3. David:
   1. Bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem: In 2 Samuel 6:14-22, 
   2. I Chronicles 29:9-16
   3. So many Psalms! Psalm 4:7, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound,”

I’m not going to go into each one, because my mom already says my blogs are too long. 🙂 Each of these people, however, had situations where maybe they had a reason to celebrate; maybe they didn’t. Paul was rotting in jail, but he used his time to give thanks to God and holy cow, the testimony he could share from that experience! Mary, as a young teenager, sang praise to God even though His angel just told her she was about to be an unwed mother–a death sentence in her time–and went to visit her aunt, who by all accounts shouldn’t have been able to conceive.

David–I love King David–exemplified the up-&-down journey of our spiritual walk, and by the end of it, showed a lot of transparency (good and bad) in his relationship with God. Never one to mince words; on the occasion referenced above, he was so excited about bringing the Ark back to Jerusalem that he scandalously danced in his underwear through the city (thoroughly angering his wife). His unabashed, joyful worship showed that he had no pretenses whatsoever in how he felt about the Lord….he was willing to be undignified in his joy. When was the last time you were undignified in your joy? What would that look like?

You know, I found something very interesting in working on the topic of joy…Galatians 5:22 lists Joy as a Fruit of the Holy Spirit. Love, JOY, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control…but how is Joy also a feeling, when a feeling is fleeting?

Because it’s not.

Happiness, like I said when I started this, is a feeling. Joy is a choice…a state…a fruit or a byproduct of a close walk with God by the power of the Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit are stable, building us and those around us up, leading to a domino effect of positive spiritual influence, change, and productivity. Feelings, however, are impulsive, leading to undisciplined actions, behaviors, inconsistency, and never-ending self-indulgence.

99.1 Joy FM literally says, “I Choose Joy” as it’s web handle. I love that! We CHOOSE to embrace the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives, even when the world is telling us to choose drama, noise, anger, etc. When we choose joy and we choose to share joy, we are pouring out a beautiful perfume to everyone that encounters us. It’s that joy that’s contagious, that makes people want to know why we’re different. He Makes Us Different!

Around 181x in the ESV, we find the word “JOY” in the Bible!

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
2. Romans 12:12: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
3. Psalm 94:19: “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.”
4. Psalm 95:1: “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.”
5. Isaiah 12:3: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
6. Romans 5:11: “Not only so, but we also glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
7. Philippians 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”
8. Nehemiah 8:10: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Joy is a place of stability for us, because we are anchored in the hope we have in Jesus. Hope is the key word–hope isn’t a fruit of the Spirit, because it is not based on interpersonal relationships. Hope, like faith, is solely dependent on Jesus & His work in our lives. Hope is between Him and us…and because we KNOW HE IS WHO HE SAYS HE IS, we can have long-standing, solid joy in Him that we share with others!

Choose joy today. Make the decision to sit at the feet of Jesus, share your heart–share the good, the bad, and the ugly–and let Him exchange it for the beauty only He can give, as He heals your hurts & exchanges the pains of this world for the Joy that can only come from Him.