Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.
Psalm 43:4
We all know that kind of refreshing delight, what the Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards called a “sweetness. that can fill us at times with pleasure. The joy may be brief or sustained, subtle or overwhelming. Its immediate source may be a thought, a sight, a sound, a touch. Whatever kind it is, we all agree that joy is desirable, a great good.
But how does this joy differ from happiness? Some would say it’s simply a matter of intensity; others would claim it depends on the source. I think, however, that the two experiences are in different categories altogether, though they certainly can come to us at the same time, and are often related. The briefest definition I could offer is this: Joy is the sense of delight that arises within us in the presence of someone or something we love.
Happiness is a condition or state of being, joy is a ‘sense’. Edwards called it, in the language of his day, an ‘affection’. To put it another way, joy is a response rather than a state of being. It depends, not on our acquisition of some. thing, but rather on our encounter with something. Happiness possesses, joy appreciates; happiness grasps, joy beholds. As theologian Karl Barth once observed, “Joy is really the simplest form of gratitude.”
This understanding of joy is found throughout the Bible. Joy is the appreciative response, for example, of a father to the goodness of wisdom he finds in his son (Proverbs 15:20). It’s the exultation of a righteous person over the righteous reign of justice in the land (Proverbs 21:15). It’s the delight taken by a citizen of Jerusalem in the sight of his native city’s beauty (Psalm 48:1-2). In each of these cases, joy is the sense of delight arising in these people in the presence of someone or something they love.
Jesus is present with you right now! What ‘sense’ are you experiencing in that knowledge?