When sorrow sits heavy on my soul
I want to remember to go deep,
stretch down to my foundations,
touch the joy that lies there,
waiting, holding on.
It’s easy to forget, to wallow in the mud
that seems pervasive, heavy, dark.
But my Mentor has been nourishing
my roots, plunging them yet further
into the source of Life.
It springs up constantly out of his stores.
I want each tendril to wake up,
draw in that precious energy
of Truth that never changes,
send Joy zinging
into each fingertip, into my eyes
so that I see things differently,
colored by his radiant love.
My heart will beat his rhythms
within the sorrow.
This month I’ve been studying Lamentations, preparing it for translation into Nyarafolo (Côte d’Ivoire). It is striking the way the writer elaborates in great detail the suffering his nation has gone through because of their sin, yet turns the central chapter around to focus on hope. It is not “I-hope-so” hope, but assurance that in spite of all the horrors God is faithful, and he will bring back joy.
This has kept me contemplating chaos and ongoing suffering, whether worldwide, national or personal. Grief is real. Sorrow is deep sadness. It is not realistic or healthy to say: “Just get over it! Everything will be all right!” But the Bible does say:
One may experience sorrow during the night, but joy arrives in the morning. (Ps. 30:5 NET)
That gives us something to look forward to and changes how we view the future. During the suffering, though, does joy just vanish? Paul gives his own testimony about this, starting with a long list of all the horrible things that have happened and are happening to him, inserting near the end that although he is sorrowful, he is “always rejoicing”! (2 Cor. 6:10 NIV)
Was he just an extraordinary Christian, or is this joy in the middle of sorrow something we Jesus-followers can truly experience?
Many pastors and scholars have delved into this. What I’ve learned is that our understanding of the implications of the word “joy” has grown shallow. We tend to use the words “happiness” and “joy” interchangeably in English. Both are important to our lives, but what I find helpful is a differentiation made meaningful by the Healing Springs Wellness Center:
“When we experience happiness, our brains activate reward centers and release dopamine—the same neurotransmitter involved in addictive behaviors. This creates a cycle where we constantly seek the next ‘happiness hit’ to maintain those positive feelings.
“Joy activates different brain regions entirely. It stimulates areas associated with: meaning-making and purpose; spiritual and transcendent experiences; long-term wellbeing and contentment; emotional regulation and resilience.”[1]
Joy is therefore “a more stable and sustainable emotion than happiness.”[2]
So happiness is a good thing, it just can’t produce the healthy ongoing stability that comes from joy. The Bible is clear that joy is produced in us by the Spirit’s work (Gal. 5:22)—it is not just man-made. We can hold onto this joy, knowing that God will also use our suffering for his good purposes, so that we become increasingly mature in our inner person:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (Jas. 1:2,3 NIV)
Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance, character, and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Rom. 5:3-5 NET)
When we are going through hard times (physical, emotional, social, whatever!) the darkness feels like it takes over. We cannot just shrug it off and claim that we’re fine, or give that advice to someone else. But we can remember that our loving God is at work in us and that his promise is also eternal life with him.
If we remember that we have a solid assurance of ongoing and everlasting joy, we can cling to that. Since that is not just a passing emotion but truth, put in place by God himself—the Spirit who lives in us—we can draw life-water from it to assuage our thirst even in the middle of a desert. It refreshes us even in the middle of sorrow when we dig deep into that source in our souls. So interacting with the statement in Psalm 30.5 that says “joy comes in the morning,” John Piper puts it this way:
” . . .it is just as true that my night of weeping would give way, in due time, to a tearless joy. That’s what I think the psalmist means when he says that joy follows sorrow. There are waves of sorrow and pain and loss that break, big waves that break, over the unshakable rock of Christian joy, and these waves submerge the laughter in the surging. You can feel it: the surging surf of weeping that wells up unbidden from your heart. But they don’t dislodge the rock, and the waves recede in due time, and the rock glistens again in tearless sunlight.”[3]
That “rock” of Christian joy is based on assurance that we are never alone, that God’s love is filling us and holding us through the storm, and that eternal joy is ahead. That is our solid rock. In my poem, I compared that joy to the springs of living water that nourish us all the time. We keep growing and producing fruit that includes endurance and joy when we stay rooted in the our sustaining assurance that God is sovereign and intimately involved with us. I remind myself to drink it in, even when I feel overwhelmed.
Jesus himself said that if we are walking with him, doing what he says, we will have this joy:
If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. (Jn. 15:10-11 NET)
Cling to the joy!
[1] https://healingspringswellness.com/joy-vs-happiness-mental-health/
[2] Ibid., Dr. Antonio Damasio
[3] https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/does-joy-come-after-suffering-or-in-it
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