Abiding Joy

A flash of color dances before your eyes. Delicate wings rest precariously on a dazzling bloom. A beautiful butterfly appears momentarily before it flits and flutters off.

You arrive home after a grueling day of work pressures and traffic snarls while your mind is preoccupied with relationship struggles, financial strains, and health uncertainties. But greeting you at your front door is your faithful four-footed friend tail-a-wagging and suddenly some of life’s burdens seem easier to bear.

A bouquet of exquisite red roses adores your table. For a few short days, they are a fragrant focal point and a splash of color against the backdrop of your drab dining room. Savoring the moment, both the gift and the giver put a smile on your face.

Your backyard was a showcase of meticulously manicured gardens and flowerbeds overflowing with a rainbow of colorful blossoms. Until a fierce storm blew through and what was once magazine worthy has been reduced to broken branches, scattered petals and endless debris. The only thing still standing upright – unharmed by the ravages of the storm – is a stalwart, sturdy oak tree.

Happiness is a butterfly and a bouquet of flowers. Joy is a loyal lab and a solid tree. What makes your pet different from a butterfly? Your pet has made its home with you, day in, day out; a butterfly visits your garden when the conditions are right. What makes an oak tree different from fresh cut flowers? The tree has put down deep roots to weather storms; cut flowers fade fast. The staying power of a dog and a tree can be summed up in one word - abiding.

I have often confused happiness with joy, but they were never meant to be synonyms. What is the difference between the two? – abiding. Happiness is an emotion dependent on happenings. True joy, a fruit of the Spirit, puts down roots and makes its home with you.

In speaking to his followers, Jesus referenced joy in John 15 with the vine and the branches analogy. He is the vine; we are the branches, and the only branches that produce fruit like joy are those that adhere to the vine. He termed this attaching to the vine as abiding. By making our home with God and putting down our roots in him we can grow the fruit of joy.

Who doesn’t enjoy it when blissful moments add color to our lives – a warm hug, a favorite dessert, a funny joke, a goal accomplished, an event celebrated? Those fleeting pleasant occasions sprinkle and season our life. But better still to develop that deep abiding joy that grows from intimacy with God especially in times of trials and testing. Happiness is circumstantial and temporal: joy is organic and eternal. Choose joy – abiding joy.

Dear Jesus, help me to cling to you, the vine. As I draw nourishment from you, help me to produce lasting fruit through your Spirit, such as love, joy and peace. Grow in me your abiding joy for all the seasons of life I walk through.

Throughout this Day: Contrast times in your life when you felt a rush of emotional happiness and times when you experienced the depths and endurance of the fruit of spiritual joy that helped carry you through some rough patches.