joy vs happiness

Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
neither shall fruit be in the vines;
the labour of the olive shall fail,
and the fields shall yield no meat;
the flock shall be cut off from the fold,
and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Habakkuk 3:17-18

I learnt something interesting today. Joy is different from happiness - yeah! You'd think they were kinda the same thing but happiness is the result of happenings around you and joy is from the inside. The verse above describes happenings that would usually cause us to be unhappy - no figs, no fruit, no erm.. olive work, no meat (that's something that would make me unhappy), no herds... yet Mr Habakkuk (or the person who wrote this book) says we should be joyful despite this because our rejoicing comes in the Lord, our joy is in the God of our salvation. The Message translation of verse 18 says: I'm singing joyful praise to God. I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.

I often find myself in church feeling sorry for myself for the things that happen in my life and thinking to myself, with all the crap that's happened to me recently, how could I possibly sing praises to God? I think that it's absolutely impossible to be happy with all the external stuff dragging me down.

But as I learnt today, joy isn't like that. Joy is inward. Joy is from God. You can be unhappy because of the things that happen to you but you can be joyful at the same time. Cool huh? So essentially, saying that you are too unhappy to praise God is being selfish and self-involved. I need to continue to tell myself that it's not about me, it's all about GOD. I still don't think I understand this whole concept, but just that small bit of info has helped me learn more about myself.

Fact of the matter is that despite the dissappointments and happiness-killing-things that happen in life, we should always continue to praise God because He is worthy to be praised!