The Joy Is Already Ours

You're not responsible for acquiring your own joy.

I've been struggling with...joylessness this summer. I guess most people would say I've been struggling with depression. But I don't like giving it the benefit of a name. satan is a filthy, lying, conniving bastard who brings darkness whenever and wherever he gets a chance, and he doesn't deserve for even one of his actions to merit a title.

I've been struggling with joylessness.

Yesterday, I moved to Austin. I walked around the campus that I called home for three years, only to return and call it home yet again. It felt right. I felt peace. I felt like I was where I was supposed to be.

This morning, I woke up and thought, "I left my family and my safety net...for what? Why am I here again? What have I done?" And the joy meter began to fall.

Then I heard someone talk about joy. How we like to blame things when we don't have it. We blame the things we got but that didn't satisfy. We blame ourselves for our inability to acquire whatever it is that will bring us joy. Or we blame joy itself, for not existing when we were told it did.

We work so hard to get joy. We know it's out there, and so we work and work and change and change and hope and hope that our happiness will last. That the good feelings from the move, or the kiss, or the compliment, or the job, will stay with us. That we'll be happy again and not falling asleep in tears, night after night after night.

But the joy is already ours. Jesus came with one goal, that we may have life and have it abundantly. He drank the cup of sorrow so that we could drink the wine of joy, joy that doesn't run out. We're not responsible for acquiring our own joy. He already did. He is the joy we've always wanted but never thought we'd have. His love is life abundantly.