Decisive joy

A dear friend of mine has a tattoo on their wrist with this simple phrase: “Choose joy.” It serves as a reminder to them that joy is a choice, one that each of us can make each moment, every day. And we do this by rejecting every thought that is unlike joy – thoughts such as discouragement, anger, envy, and fear.

The King James Version of the Bible includes over 150 instances of the word “joy.” About half of those appear in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22, 23).

So, there is no law against joy, and joy is found alongside love and peace. Not a bad place to be! And I’ve found many references in the Bible that suggest that joy isn’t conditional or dependent on circumstances. For instance, Paul and his friend Silas sang praises to God in prison – at midnight, in chains. The Bible then records, “Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed” (Acts 16:26).

The lens of Christian Science presents a deep, radical view of joy. Joy is already ours because it’s a quality of God, and Christian Science teaches that each of us is God’s reflection and therefore has full access to joy. Joy is essential; it’s part of our true being. When we feel joy, we are feeling the presence of God, good. We are literally feeling good. True spiritual joy is not circumstantial or dependent on people, places, or things. And joy isn’t fragile. It’s as strong and dependable as God is.

There is another important aspect to real joy. In her revolutionary book on Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it” (p. 57). To me, the key to genuine joy is the realization that, as Mrs. Eddy says, it’s unselfish and can’t exist alone.

I know from my own experience the healing power of choosing joy, not willfully but persistently. When I was a teenager, with everything in my life going really well, I was suddenly bowled over by depression. It seemed to come from nowhere, and I felt as though it had flattened me like a pancake.

Because I had seen healings in my life from relying on Christian Science, I turned to God for help. The answer I got seemed a bit academic at first: to look up every reference I could find on happiness and joy in the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings. There are more than 500 such references, so it took a while! But each use of these words taught me something about the importance of joy.

I found that there are many qualities of thought that result in joy, such as service, gratitude, forgiveness, patience, and unselfed love. Slowly but surely, I began to see that we can’t really live without joy. To thrive there has to be joy.

One of the passages in Science and Health that has always helped me says, “The sinless joy, – the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness without a single bodily pleasure or pain, – constitutes the only veritable, indestructible man, whose being is spiritual” (p. 76). And if you take out everything but the subject, verb, and object of that sentence, what do you get? “Joy constitutes man.”

My healing wasn’t instantaneous, but came like the dawn – gradually, inevitably, I felt a sense of “the joy that none can take away” (Minny M. H. Ayers, “Christian Science Hymnal,” No. 139). And it has remained a strong and steady element in my life ever since.

From that experience, many years ago, I’ve learned to value joy and not take it for granted. I pray about joy, for myself and for the world. Joy comes from knowing God, loving God, and being grateful for God’s love for all. Another name for God is Soul. You could say joy is Soul-full and comes from our divine Father-Mother’s love and grace. It is God’s never-ending gift to all Her ideas, including you.

Let your light shine. Let your life shine – with joy!

Adapted from an article published in the May 23, 2022, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.