JOY

The unbounded elation as expressed in the warm, happy smile on the baby’s face indicated the sheer joy she felt as she gazed at her mother. Her joy knew no bounds nor showed any hesitation in her gleeful expression; the baby was expressing unlimited joy. While she will have her share of joyful moments in her life, the joy of that moment with her mother will never be equaled by any other occasion. It was a joy knowing no fears, no doubts; it was a joy of total contentment, without any limitations. It was a joy of knowing that she was loved unconditionally by her protector, her mother.  It is a joy that will not be experienced again in this life.

As man journeys through life, he is always seeking happiness and some sense of the joy, as the joy he experienced as a loved child. Unfortunately such joy will not be attained on a human level. It has been reserved for man’s life with God. It is with God that true, total joy will be experienced and will be far more intense and fulfilling than even the joy of the baby as she gazed at mother’s face. It will be the joy of knowing, of the intellect, that a human will know God as the source of all truth. Oh yes, there will be a feeling accompanying the knowing of joy, but it is in the knowing God that real Joy is realized. God is the object of the joy.

C.S. Lewis, the author of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and several other works of fiction and nonfiction, traced his search for joy in the autobiography of his early life, “Surprised by Joy.” A confirmed atheist in his early adult years, Lewis was quite comfortable with the materialist philosophy and its “limited liabilities.” Materialism offered him an escape from any form of judgment. Once one died that was the end of everything; no obligations, no judgment, nothing. If one found this life to be excessively burdensome, suicide was an acceptable solution. Lewis found horror in Christianity in that it had “no exit door.” Christianity offered no avenue to avoid judgment and its consequences.

Yet as Lewis continued his tortuous and stumbling quest for real Joy, he had to face the fact that joy was found in an object. He concluded that “sex is very often a substitute for Joy” and wondered whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy. He entered into all sorts of cults seeking the real “desirable”, the object which would be joy. Lewis’ journey took him through every imaginable philosophy, only to be disappointed in his search for Joy. He resisted with all his intellect the belief in God, particularly in the Christian God; it included judgment and authority, neither of which he could accept. Yet as he began to read G.K. Chesterton, particularly Chesterton’s “Everlasting Man”, the writings of George MacDonald and became friends with T.R. Tolkien, he reluctantly began to accept that Christianity must be considered.

Then one of his old friends, a firm and cynical atheist as one could find, noted with great disgust that the historicity (the study of the historical actuality of persons and events) of the gospels was confirmed. This shocked Lewis and pushed him closer to a belief in God and eventually to Christianity. He had found the absolute object that would provide true, complete, total joy – God in the person of Jesus Christ.

As each of us travel through the trials and tribulations of life, we should remember that absolute Joy exists in God, in whom all of our thirsting for Joy will be realized, partially in this life and completely in the next. God must be our object of Joy. This joy is like that of the baby as she gazed at her mother; it will be unlimited and total.

Suggested Readings:

C.S. Lewis was a prolific writer, noted below are just two of his many worthwhile books.

“Mere Christianity” and “The Screwtape Letters” , both are published by HarperSanFrancisco and are available on Amazon.