You have often heard people say, “I just want (my kids, my husband, myself) to be happy.”
But what is happiness? Is there a difference between Joy and Happiness?
Consider, for a moment, the ultimate difference between the two.
Happiness is an emotion, but Joy is your foundation.
King Solomon had everything possible to be happy: money, power, wisdom, armies at his disposal, a bevy of concubines – yet, he was not happy. Ecclesiastes 2:11 says, “Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after the wind and there was no profit under the sun.”
Joy can be elusive … for, just like Solomon, we can try to achieve fame and fortune, thinking it will give us peace and happiness. Only to find, it is like the wind and gone.
Helen Steiner Rice wrote in a poem, “Time is not measured by the years that you live, but by the deeds that you do and the joy that you give … So what does it matter how long we may live, if as long as we live we unselfishly give.”
Joy is close to us all the time. Remember how your heart felt the first time your baby laughed; your spouse looked at you in that special way; you rescued a tiny kitten; or gave a meal to a hungry person?
In Philippians 2:2, it says, “Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.”
With God as your rock and foundation, Joy will find you.
Your search is over.