“Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.“
John 16:24
When we think we’ve lost our joy, we may be mistaking joy for happiness. Happiness is conditional, depending on external relationships and circumstances. Joy is unconditional and based on a relationship with God. Jesus didn’t say He will give us joy, He said He would make our joy complete. He indicated that it is through our asking and receiving, that our joy is made complete. It’s not the things we receive that complete our joy, since we all know people with a lot of things, who are still not joyful. Through asking and receiving over time, we allow God into our inner life and maintain a tried and true relationship with Him. Through our relationship with Him, faith reaps reward, and we learn to trust and wait for the other answers. Our joy becomes complete in knowing God and being known by Him, more than in receiving answers. The joy Jesus talked about is beyond temporal happiness. People were happy after being healed, the disciples were happy that the demons were subject to them, and there is great happiness in overcoming external evil, but Jesus was speaking of something deeper and more lasting than happiness. The prophet Nehemiah told us the joy of the Lord is our strength. There is an inner strength that cannot be derived from the happiness of everything going our way. The apostles and early Christians were betrayed by friends and family, thrown to the lions, beheaded and killed just for believing in Jesus. Things didn’t go their way, but their most valuable asset was their inner strength, a deep joy of knowing Jesus was in it with them. Before Peter was martyred, he told the early church to rejoice in their trials with indescribable joy, full of glory. Maybe this was the joy Jesus was talking about. It’s a joy that gives us strength, and comes from knowing He is with us. It resides in each of us who have maintained a relationship with Jesus. If you search, you’ll find this complete joy is within you. It developed through your many hardships and trials, and is evident when you can pause and say,
“I know whom I have believed in, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12)