The Gift of Joy in the Rockiest Places — Vaneetha Risner
Can we find joy in sorrow?
Since they’re opposites, does one require the absence of the other? Or can they coexist?
The apostle Paul believed they could exist simultaneously when he offered: “We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well-known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:8b-10).
Happiness and Joy
Those paradoxes Paul listed are impossible outside of Christ. Joy isn’t natural in sorrow. Sorrow involves grieving, tears, and longing. We aren’t happy when we’re crying. But joy isn’t happiness, which is based on chance and circumstances. No joy is much deeper as it comes from God’s Spirit. Joy in sorrow is possible when we intentionally look for God and to God in the midst of loss. Sometimes it requires crying out to him, “Bring joy to your servant’s life because I appeal to you” (Psalm 86:4 CSB) and then looking around to see how God is answering. That joy, which is most connected to the sense of God’s nearness, can be even stronger and deeper than any temporal happiness.
Please know that I’m not trying to undermine or invalidate the importance of happiness. When I reflect on the circumstantial events that made me happy, I am still so thankful. Being accepted into a grad school that I loved. Landing a job that seemed perfect for me afterwards. Sending a blind email to the ministry desiringGod and later having my piece featured on their website. Becoming a published author when I never considered myself a writer. Building my dream house that has abundantly met my changing needs.
Disappointment
I saw and still see God’s gracious provision in these gifts. Yet my deepest joy has not come from circumstances at all, but it has come from finding God in suffering. I experienced that joy recently when I received difficult medical news. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone and wasn’t sure how to respond to the calls and texts I received from friends who wanted to know how the procedure had gone. It hadn’t gone the way that I wanted, and I felt let down by God. We’d prayed. Friends had prayed. And once again, I felt the bitter sting of God’s saying “no” when I wanted a “yes” so badly.
Joy from God
Yet two days later, as I was reading Scripture, God met me. I’d been reading in Galatians, and the note in my Spurgeon study Bible on Galatians 5:22 read:
“Many children of God, even when driven away from the outward means of grace, have nevertheless enjoyed such visits of God, such inlets of divine love, that they have wondered whence such joy could come. In the wilderness waters leap forth, and streams in the desert. Believers are not dependent upon circumstances. Their joy comes not from what they have, but from what they are; not from where they are, but from whose they are; not from what they enjoy, but from that which was suffered for them by their Lord. It is a singular joy, then, because it often buds, blossoms, and ripens in wintertime, and when the fig tree does not blossom, and there is no herd in the stall.”
As I was reading, the heaviness I’d been feeling lifted. Scriptures came to life as God highlighted passages I would have passed over. His presence was unmistakable; He was with me in this disappointment. I’d been hoping for change, for deliverance and relief, but the medical news had been far from that. My world was still shrinking, and I wasn’t sure whether or when it would enlarge. Yet in that moment, an inexplicable joy sprang up in me; the fig tree was not blossoming in this winter, but I had a joy in and from the Lord.
God had heard my prayers and had been continually responding to them. This trial, this physical setback, had been prayed over long before I went into the procedure. I needed to trust that this result was directly from God’s hand; God was giving me exactly what I needed. God’s “no” was for my best or he would have answered with a resounding “yes.” I knew that all things were possible with God, so if God hadn’t healed me, it wasn’t for my best. Since God is not cruel, he would never deny me anything that was good for me.
Continued Joy in God
This unexpected joy continued as I felt surrounded by God. I had spent years of relatively pain-free walking, and that had not drawn me to God or given me any specific joy. But somehow knowing my walking might be limited, and meeting God in Scripture through that loss, produced an otherworldly joy. A joy so rich that I cannot adequately describe it. I understood how the joy of the Lord could be my strength amidst great weakness.
As I reflected on it, I realized my greatest desire was to feel God’s nearness forever. I could relate to the psalmist David who said, “One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27: 4). I want this closeness to God all the days of my life.
David then said, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord do I seek.’ Hide not your face from me” (Psalm 27:8). Seeing God’s face, seeking him and finding him had become my greatest joy.
Nothing Can Take Away Our Joy
I’m thankful that nothing can separate me from Christ’s love. And that bad news, rather than pulling me away from God, has a way of drawing me close. I am even more convinced that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). I am seeing his love and faithfulness in this trial, and I am grateful.
The joy I feel when I’m captivated by God cannot be taken away by difficult circumstances. Instead, it seems to grow deepest in barren places, in rocky soil, in the wilderness that I never would choose for myself. Here God has taught me to trust him, and I wouldn’t trade that joy for anything in the world.
