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Having joy is linked to trust, so having more joy increases our trust, and having more trust increases our joy.
God wants us to be happy. True happiness (joy) comes from abiding in him. Psalm 97:12 says, “ May all who are godly rejoice in the Lord and praise his holy name.”
Being joyful in the Lord means trusting that He has plans for us to live our best life.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, “My plans for you are for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope. When you pray, I listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me."
Trusting God means searching for the good and finding hope in Him. Looking for the worst things to happen or focusing on the bad things that happen to us reduces our trust in the Lord. While looking for the best scenario or “silver lining” increases our trust in Him. James 1:2-3 says, “When Troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”
In 2018, Harvard psychologists David Levari and Daniel Gilbert observed TSA agents looking for terrorists where there should not be any. Example: doing a full pat-down search on a 92-year-old lady.
They hypothesized that our brains get programmed to look for trouble in our lives. They did a study tasking people with viewing 800 faces ranging from downright intimidating to completely harmless. They were asked to judge which faces seemed threatening. After viewing 200 faces, they began showing fewer of the threatening faces. As the frequency of threatening faces decreased, the participants began to judge neutral faces as threatening.
Their conclusion suggests that as we experience fewer problems, we do not necessarily become more satisfied with life. We just lower our threshold for what we consider a problem. We end up with as many issues, but they become hollow.
We can apply this conclusion to joy. As we seek the things of the world to make us happy, when we find a new thing, the old one no longer brings us happiness.
1 John 2:15-17 says, “Do not love the world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from the world, and this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.”
Rather than being happy, God wants us to feel blessed. Blessed means experiencing the goodness of God despite the difficulties of this life in the world (supernatural Peace).
Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence."
So here we are now, blessed when we put our trust in God! We gain that supernatural peace despite all difficulties by trusting in the Lord. John 16:33 says, “I have told you all this that you may have peace in Me. Here on earth, you will have many trials. But take heart (have courage), because I have overcome the world.”
In conclusion, we trust in the Lord by focusing on His goodness and love for us. And trusting gives us freedom, peace, and joy that can not be experienced without focusing on God’s goodness and love.
I leave you with one last verse. Psalm 143:8 “Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you.”
References:
NLT Bible
The Comfort Crisis. https://andrewclark.co.uk/product-book-summaries/the-comfort-crisis
Levari, D., Gilbert, D., Wilson, T., Sievers, B., Amodio, D., & Wheatley, T. (2018). Prevalence-induced concept change in human judgment. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap8731
Discussion/Thought Question - So after reading my post answer this... Can you think of a time when you trusted God during a difficult situation, and it actually brought you some peace and joy? What was that like?
