Joy and Happiness

 

In college, I met an introverted, pensive musician named Joy--a name I'd always liked. "I hate it," she said. "Adults are always telling me to smile and act happy, because my name is Joy." Which is one reason that when naming my own children I never reached for the "virtue" names. Perhaps they are too prescriptive, too easily taken for labels or even pronouncements. 

Christians are fond of saying that joy and happiness are two different things, and I don't disagree, but I believe there's a ton of overlap. "Happy" isn't always the shallow "happenstance" emotion some want to dismiss it as; Bible translations vary on whether they render the Greek makarios from Jesus' sermon on the mount as "happy" or "blessed," and the Greek word means "supremely blessed," "fortunate," "well off," "blessed," or "happy." In God's economy, being supremely blessed isn't a shallow, worldly, temporary, or despised thing. "Happy" isn't necessarily joy's feeble, undesirable imitation.

However, joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and what does it mean, exactly? That is, how does it surpass happiness, as we claim it does? This question causes me to ponder how (and if) I'm allowing the Spirit to produce this fruit through me. How is it expressed? 

Personally, I find joy to be a quiet, inward gladness and wellbeing that because of Jesus Christ all is secure in the long run and for the future. In that sense, unhappiness at present circumstances can't drive out real joy; even when the joy is hard to find, it has not disappeared and will be felt again. Joy is like an inner glow of rightness, assurance, okayness, stability, gratitude, a sense of God active in your life right now, and while it doesn't demand we squeal and jump up and down, or even smile, I find that when it wells up I often want to move my body. Perhaps happiness is more about now and joy more about horizons or a steady state. Perhaps joy is more a condition or position than an emotion? 

Perhaps my friend Joy being asked to act "happy" was troubling to her because joy and happiness were being conflated. And because she was being reduced to a smile and a cheerful chirp. What I do know is that her soulful, melancholy bent was not at all in conflict with her potential for true, and lasting, joy.