Experiencing Joy

It’s been 4 years since I learned about my cancer recurrence, stage 4, terminal, maybe just months to live. Then something amazing happened that I still can’t fully explain. About a week after my diagnosis, God poured into me an intensity of joy that hasn’t let up. This joy is real, it’s without pretense, it’s genuine, it’s wonderful, and maybe it’s one reason the Lord has kept me here so I can keep telling others about it.

The basis of this kind of joy is obviously not my circumstances. Cancer is painful. It steals away strength. It breeds helplessness. It can be expensive. In addition, there are a multitude of other circumstances that can threaten joy, such as family conflicts, betrayal, personal failures, or financial loss. Think of the many Israeli families who now live with the reality of their loved ones captured, tortured, raped, burned, even beheaded by Hamas terrorists. Those who seek happiness in their circumstances rarely have it for long.

Yet the Bible often speaks of experiencing joy in the midst of trials and afflictions (2 Cor. 7:14; 8:2; Phil. 2:17-18; Heb. 10:34; James 1:2). Even when Jesus was just hours away from the agony of the cross, He expressed joy (John 15:11; 17:13; Heb. 12:2). How can this be? If you think the answer is something like loving God more than anything in this world (isn’t that what you expect a missionary to say!), then you are absolutely right. You cannot find this kind of joy in the world; it only comes from the Lord.

Assuming you know you belong to the Lord, then cherish these truths with me. Before creation, God chose YOU as His precious treasure (Eph. 1:4), He promised to work toward transforming you into the likeness of His Son, Jesus (Rom. 8:29). At some point, God opened your spiritual eyes to see Him in such a way that changed your life (2 Cor. 4: 6-7). He gave you His Spirit who works in us that which is pleasing to Him (Phil. 2:13). He has made many incredible promises to those who belong to Him, including a glorious eternity that greatly lessens the sting of present-day suffering (1 Cor. 4: 16-18). He has promised He will not allow any trial to befall you, in which you can not only endure it by His grace, but also find joy in it (2 Cor. 9:8). If these truths make your heart sing, then you likely know, by experience, the joy of the Lord.

Of course, our initial emotional response to adversity will likely not be joy. We have to fight for joy when we face grief, hurt, sickness, discouragement, fear, even agonizing pain. The key, for me at least, has been to see how God is using the adversity to conform me to Christ. There are many examples from Scripture and from life when God uses adversity to teach us to love the unlovable, to show mercy on those who repent, to forgive the harshest sin, to have compassion on the weak, to wean us from the grip of greed, to build our hope and our life around that which counts for eternity. 

Each time we grow in mercy, compassion, forgiveness, love, contentment, humility, and wisdom, we are experiencing the Holy Spirit at work in us, doing what we cannot do ourselves. That’s when we learn that this kind of joy is not a concept or a philosophy, but a Person – the Holy Spirit Himself! When we see God, by His Spirit, at work in us to make us more like Him, then His presence in us IS the joy that not even cancer can eat away. “If we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us. We know that we live in Him and He lives in us because He has given us His Spirit” (1 John 4:12-13). “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you…” (John 15:11).