Tonight, I set out to answer that question. I read my Bible and did some online research for about an hour. Do you know where it led me? ...to Joy. It was all kind of funny in that ironic sort of way. You see, at the beginning of the year, God led me through something and at the end, He urged me to declare this year "The Year of Joy." So, it's funny that my answer to "Where is peace?" just happens to be "Joy."
So, after an hour, my course of research switched and I began to dive head-first into Joy. And I didn't like what I was finding. There are many, many stories in God's Word. Not all of them are wonderful. We know the story of Job (I've talked about him a little bit). Do you know what the Bible says that Job did immediately after his children were killed? "Then Job...fell on the ground and worshiped (Job 1:20)." Seriously, Job...you're making the rest of us look bad. When the words fell from our doctor's mouth, the last thing I felt like doing was worshiping God. I had many, many words for Him, but they weren't words of worship. The words I felt were more along the lines of Job's words in Job 3: "What I fear has come upon me; what I dread has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil." That's more like it, Job.
The more I dug to learn about Joy, the more I started to realize that this year, "The Year of Joy," was not going to be the warm-fuzzy, fun year that I had in mind. God was calling me to "The Year of Joy" for other reasons, because Joy isn't warm-fuzzy, fun. In my searching I found this definition: "Joy is the supernatural discovery of Jesus in EVERY circumstance where we wish to find Him." So, what You're saying, God, is that I'm not catching a break this year? You mean, I won't win the lottery and move to the Bahamas and sip drinks while the sun shines down and tans my whiter than white skin? What You're saying is that this year, "The Year of Joy," is going to be tough, I'm going to hurt and cry, and not want to get out of bed some days. And that I'm supposed to be searching for You in all of that? ...That's exactly what He is saying to me.
Sometimes this world sucks. Everywhere you look someone seems to be in pain, there seems to be some injustice, and life just doesn't seem fair. Tonight, I tried so desperately to search for the "why?" I wanted so badly to find the perfect words to soothe the hearts of my hurting friends. That's when I came across notes from a sermon I had listened to months ago, and I found this quote scribbled in the margins: "Look at Jesus. He was perfect, right? And yet he still goes around crying all the time. He is always weeping, a man of sorrows....so, what you find is that the joy of the Lord happens inside the sorrow. It doesn't come after the sorrow. It doesn't come after the uncontrollable weeping (Tim Keller)."
And just like that the light bulb goes on. Jesus was perfect, yet he still hurt and felt deep sorrow. He still cried. Life was still tough. What does it mean to really choose Joy? It isn't something that comes after the storm. It isn't even really something that just comes. It's something that has to be learned. We have to learn to discover Jesus in every circumstance. We have to fight to find Joy in this broken world. As I continued to search, I grew more confident that it all comes down to this: "The Year of Joy" isn't about having the happiest year of my life, or the "easiest" year. It's not about wishing away the calamities. It's not about having the "perfect" life. "The Year of Joy" is about finding Jesus in the midst, and in spite, of all of that. It's about Christ teaching us to enjoy His fellowship when difficulty surrounds us at every angle. It's not about finding the strength to finally get out of our struggles, but about finding the strength and courage to remain deep in the heart of them and find Jesus there.
This quest for the "why?" may have started as a search for fool's gold, for answers that may not exist. But "God didn't give us all the answers. He gave us Jesus." --Pastor Mark Driscoll
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