So, today I was thinking a bit about happiness and what it really is. People talk about how happy Christians are, and how people should see our joy (I would consider joy a bit different than happiness depending on context, but for now just assume I mean joy) because we love Christ. But is joy something we choose? Do we make ourselves happy based on our outlook on life, or is it a natural result of our salvation? Are non-Christians happy the same way we are? Can they make themselves happy? I would think not. They have no hope for the hard times. What is there to look forward to? But if you believe in another religion, do you have joy because you think you have hope? Or does joy only come from being in Christ? Is a joy a result of being sure of what we hope forand certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1)? Kind of like security?
Gotta go.
Mara
Hey Mara,
ReplyDeleteAn excellent question, and it's wonderful to see you thinking about this.
I think true *joy* can only be had by those who know Jesus and are known by Him. I also think it's possible to not be joyful and still be a Christian, but ultimately the Christian who is really growing in grace, rooted deeply in Christ, will be joyful.
I think I am going to blog on the subject of joy over at Wittenberg, British Columbia. It will be a pretty long post, so it will take me awhile to finish it. I'll drop you an email or a comment here when I finish it.
Lovely, lovely, lovely!
ReplyDeleteJoy is completely separated from happiness. Joy is lasting, and has many different faces. Joy even has a face of sorrow. It is the knowledge that Christ is in control, that He saved me from death, and that I will someday live with Him.
Happiness is temporal and varies depending on situation. One can be happy while joyful just as they can be sorrowful while joyful.
And that's my take on the whole deal.
MahRuh!
ReplyDeleteThat was my friend Savannah (SecretAgentRat on CGR), and she is a cool person. She mothers me, kind of. Like when I told her I made rice for breakfast one morning, she said to me "Where's your protein, boy!!?"
I think she found her way here from my blogger, because I have you linked.
Oh, by the way Mara, I put a music sectio on my blogger. You're on there. *grin*
ReplyDeleteAs a vocalist, you might be interested in something I posted recently that we've been looking at in my acoustic phonetics class - Tuvan throat singing. There are a group of people who live in the mountains just north of Mongolia (in southern Russia) who have mastered this really cool singing technique where they actually concentrate all the frequencies in their voices which are usually percieved as elements of timbre (sound quality) into the fundamental frequency (the actual frequency of the note they're singing), so it sounds like they are whistling while they are singing.