One of my all-time favorite movies is “Last Holiday.” The premise of the movie is a story that many of us have felt. The main character, Georgia, spends her entire life being cautious. She works hard in a normal job, pinches every penny, watches every bite she eats, and has huge dreams that she is waiting to accomplish. Then she gets diagnosed with a terminal illness. In short, it helps her realize that she has been scared to actually live. Towards the end of the movie, she promises herself that she would live differently if given a second chance. A chance that comes at the end of the movie when she realizes she was misdiagnosed. Isn’t fiction grand?

I would wager that most of us can relate to this storyline. Especially women. We very often spend most of our lives trying to live the way society expects us to. We chase the next fitness or diet craze so we can look like the women on the magazine covers. We chase careers and then can only give the last ounce of ourselves to our family. We become burned out, and everything becomes a chore. And we become miserable trying to make ourselves happy. Because the world teaches us that things and success are what make us happy. But that striving places emphasis on material things rather than on God. It also places importance on happiness over joy.

In our culture today, we often use the words “joy” and “happiness” interchangeably; however, the two words do not convey the same meaning. Happiness is defined as a feeling of pleasure and positivity occurring when someone feels good, proud, excited, relieved, or satisfied about something. Being happy is directly related to the events that are happening in our lives. When something positive happens, we become happy; however, when something negative happens, we become sad. Happiness is a fleeting feeling that many people spend their entire lives chasing. Joy, on the other hand, is defined as a deep, internal, and lasting sense of well-being, contentment, and purpose that transcends temporary happiness. Joy does not depend on things happening to us at a moment in time. Joy is deeper and comes from within us. In fact, it comes from the very soul God breathed into each of us. Just like we cannot have shalom without God, we cannot find true, lasting joy without Him.

The Bible speaks a lot about joy. If you count the instances of the words joy and the related word rejoice, the Bible mentions them around 400 times (depending on the translation you are reading). Most notably, it is mentioned in Galatians 5:22 as one of the fruits of the spirit…the traits/values we should demonstrate as we walk through life as Christians. Philippians 4:4 tells us to “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.” 1 Peter 1:8 speaks of unspeakable joy in the midst of bad circumstances when we believe in God. I don’t know about you, but I was taught that when an author repeats something in a book, it is something we should pay attention to. I would say a word mentioned 400 times in a book written by authors directly inspired by God is something we should definitely consider important.

Having joy despite negative or bad circumstances in our lives is not an easy task for humans. Our tendency is to mope, whine, or complain (or maybe all 3) when we don’t like the situation we find ourselves in. As humans, it is almost impossible to find true joy. But that’s where God comes into the picture. When we are indwelled with the Holy Spirit, and we learn to trust God regardless of our situation or circumstance, He will give us joy unspeakable. It is possible to have that deep feeling of well-being and contentment we call joy only when we trust the God of the universe controls every circumstance of our lives. God never promises us that we won’t encounter hard times. He promises that He will walk through them with us and take the burden from us. Knowing that allows joy to overtake the bad feelings and sadness. Just like shalom, true joy is only possible when we are in the presence of God. When He is with us, nothing around us matters because He becomes our focus. As long as we focus on Him, joy will become a natural part of our being.