I think it is safe to say that most things in this world are not as they should be. In fact, the only thing that may have ever come into this world and been, in and of itself, the way it should be, was Jesus. But Jesus was an "after the fact" kind of perfect.
Jesus came into a world that was not the way it was supposed to be precisely because it was not what it was supposed to be. Had the world never fallen and everything been perfect, then there would have been no use for a perfect messiah who was willing to sacrifice himself on a cross to bring reconciliation to this anything-but-perfect world.
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I go through all of that to say that I think a lot of us can resonate with the fact that living in a fallen world is not always a good time.
In fact, it sucks pretty bad considering the alternative of living in a perfect world where love abounds and we can take walks with God. In any case, I have found that finding joy, real sustained coherent and untainted joy, is very very difficult.
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In all honesty, it may be impossible to get the kind of joy I just described depending on how you define "untainted." What I mean when I say that is that I find it very difficult to reach situations or circumstances where I feel joy, and no contradictory emotions in the background while experiencing that joy.
Now, that may very well be related to the fact that I am a very heady person and I think about things too much or I worry about things I know are coming too often and refuse to just "live in the moment." And I'm sure there is some truth in each of those critiques.
Even still, I think that joy is just not the default position in this world; and it has not been for a long long time. I think that the world as we know it will never have joy as its default emotion or feeling people experience (at least not without a second coming or two. wink.).
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But who am I to say what anyone else's default position is? I can speak from experience that I think my default position is actually a mesh of a few different emotions: loneliness, indifference, apathy, melancholy, and maybe even frustration.
I don't always experience them simultaneously. Sometimes it can pure loneliness (and boy, do those days suck. It just seems so contradictory to live in a dorm of over 100 same-age guys and feel isolated or lonely. That irony in itself can be frustrating. Whoops, I forgot I was still talking about loneliness, ha). Sometimes it can be a mix of melancholy and indifference or apathy. It really is depressing to think about this is where people have fallen to now.
Humans are these glorious creations of God who have the capacity to love and experience relationships and affection more than anything else, and happiness does not seem to be an emotion we sustain because doing it independently instead of interdependently is just so hard.
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All that having been said, the point is that in this world we have to find joy. We need to search high and low, check the dumpsters, look between the couch cushions, and check under the bed to find joy. Rarely, does joy just come us and present itself as this feeling without a catalyst.
And finding joy can be exhausting.
It can be hard.
It can be depressing.
It can be riddled with failure.
It can be anything but joyous.
Regardless, it is far better than our other choices we have to pick from.
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Although finding joy can be so hard, when you do find it, it feels like the best decision you ever made. Joy is priceless, so go and find it.
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"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy -- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."
-Jude 1:24-25
