The hallmark of true Christian discipleship - joy over happiness

In the secular world, most people chase happiness.  This is not something new or groundbreaking.  People in marketing and sales are constantly hawking things that will purportedly bring some degree of happiness if their product is purchased.  Happiness however, is always fleeting, and dependent heavily on the externals and one’s feelings.  Yes, it can be bought, and many don’t think much about how shallow a life based on the pursuit of plain happiness can be. 

But joy is something that is markedly different and something that is unique to spiritual persons.  A spiritually mature person will have trained himself or herself in the ways not of happiness but of joy – the joy that comes from the inner conviction that God is always present no matter how the feelings or emotions are.  In my case, I have ‘good’ days, and I have ‘not so good’ days.  It hasn’t been that ‘good’ lately, but it hasn’t changed my inner joy of being at peace with my God and the fact that I am doing his will. 

But is it that difficult to differentiate between joy and happiness?  Do only people who ponder about life and faith make that distinction, and refuse to confuse the two?  I am not surprised at all that many of us may be baptized, confirmed and been Catholics for years or even decades and only equate joy with happiness when things are going well.  It doesn’t take faith to be joyful when things are going well.  Even the pagans think this way.  But the disciple of Christ needs to constantly step out of that proverbial ‘comfort zone’, to still maintain some sort of inner joy despite the fact that the situation/s one is facing may not be pleasant nor comfortable.  After all, we do not live for this life only, and the Christian is called to a faith that believes that this life is merely a stepping-stone, a training ground for something eternal called heaven.  The ‘training’ that each of us receives comes in different forms.  Most of the time, this ‘training’ involves some kind of suffering, something that asks of us to ‘hang in there’ and to believe that we are not ever going to be abandoned by God. 

When does a Christian manage to come to that state of life when despite the odds facing him/her, there is that inner conviction of joy about life?  I am convinced that it is first of all a tremendous grace given by God.  It is very much connected with faith, and we as recipients of this grace, can only say that much.  To a person who only has one definition of joy (which is equated with simple, shallow happiness) our words and our sharings about that subtle or not-so-subtle difference end up just being that – words.  To them, illness cannot exist with joy.  Poverty cannot co-exist with joy.  Failure and joy cannot exist in the same sentence.  In short, everything has to be perfectly aligned in order for some semblance of joy to exist. 

Joy, a Christian virtue, should be something that we all truly seek in life, because it is closely connected with our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Was there joy on Calvary on that first Good Friday?  It certainly wasn’t any form of shallow happiness, but if we contemplate long enough on Jesus’ conviction of doing the Father’s will, there had to be a hidden joy – so deep that it didn’t matter what he went through for the love of the Father and his will.

Perhaps it is this inability for many to appreciate this difference that we see many a dour face when there are troubles and tests in our lives.  If the Christian is only waiting for things to turn around, to get better, to become ‘all good’ before one is truly convinced of God’s presence in one’s life, one may not be a Christian with a deep faith, but rather, a disguised pagan at best. 

On my ‘not-so-good’ days, I may hardly be able to force out a smile.  But it does not take away the inner joy that I have as a disciple of the Lord.  I can only pray that more and more Christians begin to contemplate on the grounds of their faith, and become aware that we are not in this life to merely be happy, but to live in a joy that surpasses all understanding.  That way, when we do receive ‘bad’ news, or have ‘not-so-good’ days we truly can say ‘it’s alright’.  Because God is always all right.