Throughout the years, I’ve heard discussions about the difference between happiness and joy. I am not so sure the scripture makes a clear-cut distinction. To me, the two are either totally the same, or very close to the same. But some people have said, “You can be joyful, but not happy about something.” I get that. Yet, the way the person is using the concept “happy” in that sentence, in my opinion, is more in line with “agreement.” In other words, they are saying, “I am joyful in the midst of a circumstance I do not agree with.”
I don’t know if it is helpful to make a case for the difference between joy and happy. What we see in Paul in Philippians 1 is that though he is in difficult circumstances, from his house arrest and from those Christians who were preaching selflishly to make life difficult for Paul, Paul can still rejoice, and he does rejoice.
Paul is joyful in the middle of difficult circumstances. How so? It seems that Paul has figured out the importance of focus.
Did you ever notice how something in life can become the focal point of your life? You can not stop thinking about it. You can’t get it off your mind. It’s like it is always there. Like Paul’s chains. He literally could not get out of them. Of course he would be thinking about them. He mentions them often in his Prison Epistles.
You might not be in literal chains, but all humans have chains. Our chains are difficult circumstances, crises, broken relationships, health concerns, or finances. Our chains can become the focal point of our lives. They can rule us, dominating our thinking. We can have a very unhealthy focus on our chains. They can lead us to inappropriate responses:
First, the stiff upper lip: “Nothing’s wrong…I’ll be fine.” I pull that one out in my parenting role. Over the years, my wife would bring up a concern about our kids, and I would say “They’ll be fine.” They were not always fine.
Second, blaming God. In the story of Ruth (see Ruth 1:20) her mother-in-law Naomi suffered the loss of her husband and two sons (one of which was Ruth’s husband). Naomi cries out, “’Don’t call me Naomi (pleasant),’ she told them. ‘Call me Mara (bitter), because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.'” As I mentioned in the previous post, God invites us to lament, to bring our complaint to him. But we can cross a line into bitter blame, where we actually turn away from him. Did Naomi cross that line? In the end of the story, we find out that she remains faithful to God. Some people respond to chains in life by losing faith in God. How do we maintain faith in God when life is so difficult, and we become frustrated that God is not changing our circumstances? The answers are not easy. Sometimes, there are no good answers. For example, I disdain the idea that God has a reason for everything or that God is in control, because of how those phrases come across to people in the midst of suffering, trauma and tragedy. So what is God’s relationship to our pain? My answer is that while we should not blame him, we can complain to him, and faithfully look for how he invites us to trust in him in the middle of the pain, because he wants to redeem the pain.
Third, seclusion. For many of us these days, there is a chain binding us called “finances.” With a high inflation, it can feel like financial woes have us chained up and we can’t get free. Are finances taking up to much space in your thinking? Above I mentioned that with my kids I often said, “They’ll be fine.” I’m not that way when it comes to finances. Finances can make me very anxious. I can fixate on finance. It sure doesn’t help that talk about the economy seems to be everywhere we turn. Many of us think that if we were free from the chain of bad finances, if we just had more money, we would be free. Simon Cowell, famous as the grumpy, but usually right, judge on American Idol, may be rich and famous, but the doesn’t mean he’s happy, says a London Daily Mail article. Cowell says, “I get very dark moods for no reason. Nothing in particular brings it on. You can be having the best time of your life and yet you’re utterly and totally miserable. I get very anti-social, depressed and irritable. I can’t make phone calls and stuff. I just sit on my own for days.” Clearly Cowell can have an unhealthy focus on the chains in his life. He escapes to seclusion. Anyone else just want to get away from it all?
A final unhealthy focus is when we fuss! Do you know any fussy people in your lives? My wife sometimes says to me, “Why are you being so fussy?” People tend to whine about matters. We complain. Are you fussy about your chains?
Do you have an unhealthy focus on the chains in your life? These four unhealthy approaches to chains in our lives usually don’t help us. What can help us? How can we have joy when the chains of life bind us? We find out in tomorrow’s post.
Engaging Scripture 