If Happiness Isn’t Joy, What Is?

If happiness isn’t joy, what is?

Shout triumphantly to the LORD, all the earth! Be happy! Rejoice out loud! Psalm 98:4, CEB

The devil cannot bear to see one of Christ’s people happy, so he tries constantly to disturb their joy. A. W. PINK

IT’S NEEDLESS, distracting, and misleading to make fine distinctions between joy, happiness, gladness, merriment, and delight. They all speak with one voice of a heart experiencing the goodness of God and his countless gifts.

Yet most of us have encountered books, articles, and sermons telling us that joy is spiritual and happiness is secular,^a that happiness is an emotion dependent on circumstances,^b that joy is not an emotion but a choice,^c that joy is the opposite of happiness,^d and that happiness is fleeting and temporal while joy is eternal.^e You’ll see articles and sermons with titles such as “Happiness Is Not Joy”^f and “Happiness Is the Enemy of Joy.”^g And despite hundreds of biblical statements that suggest otherwise, you’ll hear, “There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that says that God wants you to be happy.”^h

So why have so many Christ-followers come to speak so negatively about happiness? Perhaps since physical delights may be involved, we are suspicious that someone who is happy must be sinning. If that’s the case, what does that say about our worldview?

Perhaps we marginalize happiness because something inside us testifies that we—who were snatched from the jaws of Hell to Heaven’s eternal delights, who are indwelt and empowered by a happy God—should really be happier than we are. Maybe by reducing joy to something unemotional, positional, or transcendental—or even inhuman—we can justify our unhappiness, in spite of God’s command to rejoice always in him. Maybe saying that joy doesn’t involve happiness allows us to lower the bar and accept a more downtrodden, cheerless Christian life.

Throughout the 1987 movie The Princess Bride, the Sicilian mastermind Vizzini repeatedly uses the word inconceivable to describe event after event that actually happens. Finally, Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

This statement also applies to that frequently used but terribly misunderstood word joy. It doesn’t mean what many people think and say it means: something unemotional. It means something far richer and better: delight, pleasure, and emotional satisfaction. It means happiness.

Speaking to unbelievers, Paul said of God, “He did not leave Himself without a witness, since He did what is good by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons and satisfying your hearts with food and happiness” (Acts 14:17, HCSB). Eight translations render the Greek word “happiness,” fourteen others use “joy,” and more than twenty others say “gladness.” Any and all of these translations are correct since happiness, joy, and gladness are close synonyms. Note also that these terms are applicable to believers and unbelievers alike. By God’s grace, believers can know happiness and unbelievers can experience joy. Paul was building a bridge to the gospel through identifying God as the universal source of happiness. Until recent times, the idea of happiness has been a bridge between the church and world, between the gospel and unbelievers—and it’s a bridge we can’t afford to burn.

However, there’s a significant difference between the happiness of believers and unbelievers. First, the happiness of the unconverted is limited to the present. King David spoke of people whose reward is in this life (see Psalm 17:14). Abraham spoke to the rich man in Hell, saying, “Remember that in your lifetime you received your good things” (Luke 16:25, NET).

Second, the happiness of this life enjoyed by the unconverted is largely dependent on favorable circumstances (see Psalm 73:18-19; Matthew 19:22). In light of Scripture’s call to joy, delight, gladness, and happiness in God, we need to abandon the idea that we can’t be happy in a sin-stained culture and that it’s unspiritual to be cheerful in a hurting world. God’s Word says otherwise.

Do we really wish to distance the gospel and the church from happiness? If we succeed, we’ll distance them from the world, too, for the world will go right on wanting happiness. Christians shouldn’t abandon happiness—we should embrace the true, holy, heartwarming, and beautiful happiness Scripture freely offers through God’s persistent and everlasting love.

Lord, we can’t be happy without your presence in us—at least not for long. Help us use the gifts you’ve so freely given to draw closer to you and to demonstrate in our little worlds the delight you poured into the whole universe when you first made it. Thank you that you haven’t given up on that world, just as you haven’t given up on us. Thank you that you don’t eliminate our emotions but redeem them. When life is tough, remind us of all we have to be thankful for, and fill our hearts with your supernatural happiness as we contemplate our joy-filled eternity to come.