Happiness Vs Joy
A Cosmic View That Transcends
Normally, if you're using AI to look some stuff up, it will almost always cite its sources on the side or in a footnote. That's my experience anyway and would like to know where it came from. I'm not at all against AI being used to find information. I love it for that. I won't use it to sell things though. I did a little search on what is called "The Joy Movement." From 17 sources, The Cleveland Clinic, TikTok, Homeschool groups, Vogue, Boston Public Library, are listed among them.
To summarize, The Joy Movement is a recent trend focused on getting people to think positively, happy thoughts in response an overwhelming anxious and depressing society we live in.
As to the concept, I really love it because the climate we are in seems very toxic and divisive. The whole idea of love and happiness is twisted to make self the focus of love but is very destructive. So to this idea of finding joy and expressing it, I'd say is a good start.
However, I want to see things in art that expresses sacrifice. This, to me, is the way to get people back on track of loving others, stop focusing so much on narcissism but on real love. Art in all its forms has a potency that few other venues have. Entertainment has shown this easy enough. I think this is why Lord of the Rings, when it came out in theaters, had a massive impact. It showed what true love really is, what fellowship really looks like and what love for others moves us towards. It's a deep need for everyone and when there's a void within society of this very thing, it's a craving we all get in our hearts, the desperate want for companionship and knowing we are heard and loved. Society today has sucked this out of us and I would say, art MUST introduce this to society again.
The book series I'm writing introduces this very concept even if the characters are messed up. It's an essential theme as they struggle through their own pasts while a world around them is broken and truth is hidden. I love a good story where the main character is the hero because they are willing to sacrifice themselves for love which ultimately you find joy in.
This world in its movements will never quite find what they are looking for in this "joy movement" because joy at heart is a biblical concept. The world mingles joy and happiness and marries them together.
The problem is, happiness and joy are not the same.
- Happiness -
Based on circumstances
Us focused
In reaction to accomplishments, achievement, and material gain
Is a feeling (remember feelings are fleeting)
Looking to earthly things
Hope in “it” (it being the thing you think will bring you happiness)
- Joy -
Despite circumstances
Kingdom focused
From a place of gratitude, praise and confidence
State of being
Viewing from a heavenly perspective
Full of hope
- source [Nicole Fryling MA, LLPC / Restorative Counciling]
This world does not offer joy. It's a state of being, a choice we live in determined by our outlook, our hope in something that isn't fleeting, does not depend on happiness and is future focused. This is why in AA meetings, the emphasis is focused on a higher power as one of the goals. Joy comes from knowing something this world can never offer. It is the key to peace even in the darkest of trials. You don't find happiness here but something much more, a peace that passes understanding. I've been there in life and can attest that happiness is overrated. It's joy you want to have and that is most definitely not about being happy. It's about finding an eternal peace this world will never offer except in lies.
Ultimately, this is the foundation of stories I write. I ask myself, what type of scenario will ultimately crush a person? And then I put a character in that situation and watch what they do.
Am I mean? No and for the longest time, had the hardest time even thinking of doing this. It made me sick to even write these things out. It hurt because I know that world intimately. The pain can be so unbearable, especially as a child or a teenager. The dark places it takes you if you have no hope, have no way of escape. It’s debilitating and crushing, leading one to suicide.
But the truth is this very idea - joy is attainable, it’s not something you can’t reach for because it’s not happiness. Happiness is a physical reaction. Joy is not. Joy is what matters most to change your future. Joy is found by how you change your perspective.
Fern and Audrey, two very special councilors to the most extremely abused people, teach in their sessions with patients the concept of identity. It is key to unlocking yourself, to healing from trauma, from sex trafficking, split personality caused by abuse, ritual abuse, all the abuses in whole find their healing in identity. Because at the core of abuse is the ripping away of who you are, what defines you, how you look at yourself.
As Fern and Audrey show through using material from Dr. Michael Heiser, a biblical scholar, the healing comes from knowing your value, your worth not in how you are seen but who you are meant to be. Your status, role, title in a way God views you. You are one hundred percent made to be a prince or princess. This is NOT a figure of speech. This is the reality of who you are as a human being. You’re made to be fit for royalty in a council setting as ruler beside Jesus. This is how Jesus talks about Christian brothers and sisters, a family of royalty. We are to be above angels, the apostle Paul says. We rule them in the Kingdom to come. Our status is not just some mindless mechanical flesh animal wandering the world. We are made for a specific purpose and identity. God purposed us to be His family with the highest titles imaginable. THAT is how God sees YOU!
When we step into this revelation, the identity that we thought was ripped from us in abuse, no longer applies. It was never taken away. You cannot take away what God has freely given to you. Nobody can force it from you, only make you think you lost your identity. But it cannot be lost. It’s a title, something not physical but a role you play. THAT is what it means to Image God. Made in His Image is to wear this status of a royal family and it’s the real deal.
This is ultimately what the devil wants hidden from all of humanity. Our status is above him, is key to healing our hearts and minds. Joy is found in our identity in an eternal family of loving brothers and sisters that transcend this world. The abuse done to you does not define who you are! God’s view and title He gives to you defines you. No abuse, no stripping away of innocence, no violent act of torture that hides the child inside, creating a partition to hide from the abuse, defines you.
“I’m broken” is a lie. It’s a trick to make you view yourself as unworthy, unlovable, ugly, used up, discarded as a sexual object, not a person, none of this is you.
Identifying as a son or daughter of God must also recognize your role. You ARE princes and princesses, heirs to God’s kingdom for that is why He created humanity.
So walk in this knowledge. Abuse does not define you. It was done to you and we recognize it’s ugliness. But it cannot and never has reduced you in worth or value. For your own title is an eternal one, a royal status that never goes away.
This is where you will find joy for it’s eternal.