On Suprised by Joy

All joy...emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings." --from an unknown letter

...These were symptoms of something more all-pervasive, something which, in the long run, did most harm to the boys who succeeded best at school and were happiest there. Spiritually speaking, the deadly thing was that school life was a life almost wholly dominated by the social struggle; to get on, to arrive, or having reached the top, to remain there, was the absorbing preoccupation. It is often, of course, the preoccupation of adult life as well; but I have not yet seen any adult society in which the surrender to this impulse was so total. And from it, at school as in the world, all sorts of meanness flow; the sycophany that courts those higher in the scale, the cultivation of those whom it is well to know, the speedy abandonment of friendships that will not help on the upward path, the readiness to join the cry against the unpopular, the secret motive in almost every action. The Wyvernians seem to me in retrospect to have been the least spontaneous, in that sense the least boyish, society I have ever know. It would perhaps not be too much to say that in some boys' lives everything was calculated to the great end of advancement. For this games were played; for this cloths, friends, amusements, and vices were chosen.

This is a remarkable segment I have extracted from Surprised by Joy of C.S. Lewis. First, I have found this tendency ever calling out today in our American culture. A search for fulfillment is not unique to America, yet America is the milieu I know. This may perhaps even be the greatest deception of our day, in regard to joy... and that depending on how you define "joy". To be economical with the truth, or believe the splendid fib, one must buy into defining joy in subjectivity or delineate and pull out all the stops in the ultimate pursuit for success. It begs the question why do we do what do? What do you mean? Consider...

• When I ....laid job, then I will....


• When I ....make some new friends, then....


• When my.... children graduate _________, then....


• When I ....make the team, then....


• When I ....get the girl/guy


• When I ....finish college


• When... they understand....


• When I ....figure out why I have...


• When I ....find a faith family

Bust my butt now and then.... or
If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else...

I find a deep yearning or heartrending desire for something agonizingly elusive....something working amidst the conflict that is within. It is a cry for something more. The trickery comes when the pursuit of the"you fill in the blank_____" becomes the adulation of living life. One begins to wag their tail like a fawning dog. Completely loyal and sacrificial to the very thing that could deceptively rob them or give them true joy.... Now dogs' may truly find that "joy" in abiding in their master's will, or in their next meal. ha ha ha.... I guess it depends on the pup. Yet, within this etymology we become aware of the sure-fast source of "joy". Let's digress to a second item briefly and define this sublime joy.

Secondly, and more honestly, this passage struck me so because I can recount a day in which I found self in quite the same quandary. In context, Lewis is narrating significant events within his childhood, adolescent, and young adulthood that lead him from atheism to faith in Christ....the ultimate pursuit of joy. He would classify joy as...

. . . from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is...

As a child, I remember waiting in the afternoon, some days almost to the point of tears for my father to return home. There was such longing, and oh the exuberant joy of hearing, seeing, smelling him on His coming. He would pull up in his Big logger's truck and I would be so happy. That joy would soon fade. I don't know what created that immense longing...pain even, within my soul.

My saudade of today, is illustrated in a story from my summer adventures. As a creative ministry track leader I was responsible for taking students into various ministry environments and implementing "creative" ministry based on the needs of the people. To stay on my digressive objective, I will limit my comments to only one example.

One environment in particular you would think that I would have had the knowledge to work within, yet I found it lacking. The last place I would be very pleased to take students was working among the mentally handicapped adult population.This often brought up questions of why? "Why did God make them this way?" And this is not a new question to the ears of men and surely not the Lord. Some would ask why do the righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart. Why do the innocent suffer and the poor, why are they hungry; and the newborn and others affiliated with mentally illness or disease? Maybe this is a question that God alone can fully answer and grasp. For I have found answering it adequetely is like trying to grasp the wind in my hands; it simply cannot be done.

During our opening introduction and orientation to the week's events, many students would express apprehension at the thought of this particular site. Yet after leaving the site they would, almost without fail express that this was the best thing they had done all week. I think I can discern why.

...Through the summer this became one of my students favorite sites. The last day we were singing and inviting them to sing with us. One of our friends in particular sang to us week upon week without fail. Yet I don't think I caught the span of the words he sang until the last week. He simply sang Amazing Grace....and not with a voice of grandeur by this world's standards, yet, if you will, in demonstration of the Spirit's power, it was like he was honey-tongued singing those soul touching words. In that moment I was cascaded with desire and longing for the Kingdom of God. I think I caught another glimpse of this Kingdom. It was glorious and full of joy. This world, this kingdom is passing away and all that is in it. I and my friends here exist in a world of brokenness, a world of depravity, in which apart from faith and salvation, found in Christ alone, our only prognosis is unspeakable

Amazing grace... that saved a wretch like me I was blind but now I see
Through many dangers.... I have already come.... His grace has brought me safe
When we've been there ten thousands years.. bright shining as the sun we've no less days to sing our God's praise than when we first begun.

*I think that day I started a new song.

For Lewis, true joy was classified in a totally different category than happiness or pleasure. Joy for Lewis always contained "the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing." Joy is, "that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction."{10} The German language has a word for this longing that Lewis describes: sehnsucht. "This is the haunting longing that touched Lewis throughout his life, that full, heavy, enveloping nostalgia for a fulfillment that awaited him—in something, somewhere."

How then shall I define joy? What is it's source? I think it is the joy that Jesus felt in the focal point of the wrath of God. We are now directed back to the picture of a dog wagging his tail. Why does he wag his tail? Is it for the pleasure for His master, or because he has his next meal? One is the source of joy, and the other is simply a illusory of joy.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus (and wag! =), the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. Hebrews

A picture of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world in collision. Yet Christ founded His joy in the love of the Father and His will. Again:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. John

Jesus knew full well what he was saying about Kingdom people when He said:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went way and sold everything he had and bought it. Matthew

And again about kingdom people when He said in reply to a rich ruler:

You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor you father and mother.'

"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him,

You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor , and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.

Therefore, I submit to you that a life that is established in Christ Jesus, the source of sublime joy, looks radically different from those who find only happiness and pleasure in a world that is already passing away.

Love and Peace!

One Way Jesus

I lay my life down at Your feet
Cause You're the only one I need
I turn to You and You are always there

In troubled times it's You I seek
I put You first that's all I need
I humble all I am all to You

One way
Jesus
You're the only one that I could live for
One Way
Jesus
You're the only one that I could live for

You are always, always there
Every how and everywhere
Your grace abounds so deeply within me

You will never ever change
Yesterday today the same
Forever till forever meets no end

You are the Way the Truth and the Life
We live by faith and not by sight for You
We're living all for You

-Hillsong