My study veered to an indirect approach as I noticed the precarious balance in an existent relationship between joy and sorrow. Joy is inseparably linked to love and explains why love must precede joy. Love creates a fork in the road that branches into either joy or sorrow. We do not get to choose which path it takes as the direction pivots on what has been done with our love and how it has been received and returned. What should disturb an individual more than sorrow is a lack of either joy or sorrow as a recipient of a relational offense. Rushing too quickly into a state of peace (the next fruit in the series) fails to validate the presence of joy and so we must not be too anxious to arrive at peace. I found that this was my main failure in experiencing joy; too often I hurried beyond the discomfort and demands of joy.
What is joy? Many images flash through the mind as one meditates on joy. I thought of an overly exuberant cheerleader, an enthusiastic worship leader or the inappropriate and annoying optimist. Is there something wrong with me that I cannot fabricate this level of excitement? Do I not have joy? I searched Scripture for words of joy to help me understand its meaning. Joy is frequently expressed through singing, dancing and shouting. I sing. I sing a great deal. Perhaps my mental images of joy were impeding my recognition of legitimate expressions of joy in my every day life. I sing often to my children. I dance frequently with them. My children are a source of joy for me. This led me to contemplate new life and its rendering of joy. How do we create new life around us? Naturally my children fall into this category, but we humans are creative in a multitude of other ways. We cook, we paint, we write, we design. When I write I feel joy. I may not be bouncing off the walls with excitement (at least outwardly), but I am creating works and bringing words to life as I pen them.
Sorrow comes when the things we create or the life we experience and love ends. A child cries as a sand castle washes away with the tide. A writer grieves when words are not valued and lose meaning through the destructive overuse of cliches. A widow stares at a blank canvas, lost in how to possibly paint a future, the use of color almost mocking the drabness of the present. A mother clutches the lifeless body of her infant close to her breast not wanting to release all the hopes and dreams invested in this once vibrant young life. A young man laments the passing of his mother and all that taught him the formation of life-giving beauty. One thing they all have in common is that they have loved, and they have loved deeply. While there is great risk in choosing to love and bear the first fruit of the Holy Spirit, there is never even the remotest possibility of arriving at joy if one does not love. The greater one's love, the greater the joy that ensues. However, there is also the risk of experiencing great sorrow. There is at least this amidst the sorrow; you may know that you have loved and that is the beginning of all fruit. Joy amidst sorrow. I have known sorrow. I continue to know sorrow, but I am comforted through these feelings. I do not want to know a life that is devoid of the risk of sorrow and therefore empty of love.
The joy in one's life becomes an indicator of the level that we love as does sorrow. We lament loss of life in its many shapes and forms. We grieve the loss of hopes, dreams, creations, relationships, all indicators of the presence of life. But what of spiritual sorrow? Do I profess joy in the face of spiritual discouragement and pain? Disingenuous expression smacks of hypocrisy. What is spiritual joy and sorrow? If physical joy and sorrow is a result of loss of life or the failure to realize its fulfillment then that which is spiritual may follow suit. Spiritual life, the birth of the spirit through the life of Jesus Christ, is cause for great rejoicing in heaven. It stands to reason then that spiritual sorrow would be the result of spiritual death or never realizing one's spiritual potential through Christ. This should grieve our spirits and cause great sorrow. If we are not grieved then perhaps we are not loving our fellow man as much as we ought to.
Our present day society and culture prides itself on the minimization of pain. We have an ache, we pop a pill. We hurt emotionally and we drink, self-medicate, or take an anti-depressant. We experience the discomfort and sorrow of labor and we hook up the IV's. None of these are wrong but often we are too quick to silence the symptoms without validating their existence and purpose. In the validation of their existence lies great joy. I have an ache, I have pushed myself to my physical limit, I gave it 100% and then some! I am hurt emotionally, I have loved deeply! I feel the pains of labor, I am bringing new life into the world! Joy hides in the unlikeliest of places. The next time you experience sorrow. take heart in that you have loved. And rejoice in the fact that one day we will be free to love, always knowing joy and never again experiencing sorrow.
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Rev 21:4
Upcoming fruit: Peace
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