Waiting for God Knows What
J O Y in the waiting
Joy is perhaps the most disguised of all the advent gifts, because it’s so connected to our very deepest self. If we don’t know ourselves all that well, we’re vulnerable to misinformation about what produces real joy in our lives. We can find ourselves chasing the counterfeit, which leaves us hollow inside. So how do we know what joy actually is?
Feeling happy is well and good; I’m all for happiness, it helps us keep going. But happiness is related to our circumstances, while joy is of a different essence.
Joy makes its home inside us when we have wholeheartedness - when we shed the false self that leans into perfectionism, or approval seeking, those times we say yes when we actually mean no, or when we can’t answer the question, “why do I do what I do?” These elements are our false self trying to run the show. It usually doesn’t go very well.
Wholeheartedness means our inside world and our outside life match up, we’re the same person wherever we are. We are authentically ourselves, separate and distinct from anyone else who has ever lived. Wholeheartedness means you know yourself and love your true self, just as you are. That’s the first requisite for joy, because joy needs a welcoming place in our spirit to settle into.
Do you think you don’t deserve joy? You do.
Do you feel like you’re not enough? You are.
Have you had a winding journey to get to where you are now? Good.
It’s made you deeper and richer on the inside, more wholehearted.
Nothing is ever wasted.
One of the gifts of joy is that it can exist alongside sadness, they’re not mutually exclusive. You can be sad and still have joy, which is good news, because life brings hard times. Joy enables us to say, and mean it, “I’m hurting right now, AND I believe in the healing to come.” Joy can be present regardless of circumstances, because joy is steadfast, it protects us from losing hope and giving into despair.
The next gift of joy is that you can’t conjure it up by striving for it. Joy doesn’t respond to a “fake it till you make it,” mentality. You can’t fake real joy no matter how hard you try. But you know it when you experience it. The beautiful mystery of joy is that its source is not in us, but in the supernatural. It’s a gift straight from heaven. You don’t have to work for it.
If we can’t strive for joy or create it on our own, how do we get it? That’s the best gift of all: It’s found in the presence of Jesus, who is already here and also coming anew during Advent. There is joy in our waiting for his arrival. If you ask Jesus to come close, he will bring that joy we long for to fill up the empty spaces in our souls. And it will be a perfect fit, because it’s just for you.
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James 4:8
This is Living Now
If we can’t strive for joy or create it on our own, how do we get it? That’s the best gift of all: It’s found in the presence of Jesus, who is already here and also coming anew during Advent. There is joy in our waiting for his arrival. If you ask Jesus to come close, he will bring that joy we long for to fill up the empty spaces in our souls. And it will be a perfect fit, because it’s just for you.