Looking for joy

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

I am a big believer in happiness. But there are definite drawbacks to the emotion…one of the biggest being that it’s dependant on circumstances. I’m a pretty happy person and I can be happy even when life isn’t happy around me, but even I get sucked down by crummy situations and people. I find my default state of happy plunging in the doldrums of grumpiness pretty fast.

There are times when I console myself with other things to try and bring back the happy. Sometimes it’s people, or food or baby hedgehog pictures or South Korean music videos (my tastes are varied) but while those things can give me the warm fuzzies and even, at times, make me happy…it’s still fleeting. It’s still dependent on things that I am experiencing here at the human level. It’s still all about me.

What I need is joy. Fruit of the spirit type joy. (Side note: If it’s joy that comes from God, does that mean it gets capitalized? A little Bible grammar help here!) I forget about asking God for joy when I’m praying. It’s easier for me to remember to ask God for His peace, because my brain is like a skittle-fueled ADHD monster and peace is hard for me to manage. It’s certainly easier for me to ask God for His love because I’ve tried that on my own and it was a giant selfish disaster. I know that I stink at these things, so I know that God’s way is the best way.

Maybe my ability to be happy is impeding my ability to ask for joy. I’m so good at being happy most of the time that I don’t have this burning need for joy. It’s not till the circumstances get bad enough and my happiness fails in the face of really crappy situations that I realize I’ve been operating on my own strengths. By then I’m scrambling and desperate. What I want is to learn to ask for God’s joy before that point.  (Yes, it would be great if I learned to ask for God’s anything before I got desperate, wouldn’t it? Baby steps, folks, baby steps).   If I could train myself to lean on God for joy all the time, then when life kicks me in the face it wouldn’t be able to shake that joy.

I don’t think it’s going to be easy. But if it works, wouldn’t it be awesome?