Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 8 and 9:
"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
A couple of years ago I read that a letter written in 1945 and addressed to a "Mrs Ellis" was being auctioned off for a considerable some of money. The letter, which had for many years been hidden inside the jacket of a book on the shelves of some used bookstore in England, was penned by a man named Clives Staples Lewis -- better known to the world as C.S. Lewis.
The letter's importance is measured not only in its having Lewis' autograph, but also because of its contents. I mean mainly the letter's reflections on the meaning of the concept of joy, which we already knew was a very important concept for Lewis in 1945. Written in August of 1945, the hidden letter corresponded in timing to the writing of the long-famous spiritual memoir Lewis authored chronicling his conversion to Christian faith -- a memoir he titled "Surprised by Joy".
In the letter, Lewis made a decided contrast between joy and simply the state of how things might be going -- one's "security or prosperity". In fact, the distinction was so sharp for Lewis that he went on in the letter to say that joy is "almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony." (I pause to let you read that again and let it sink in.)
For joy to be almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony, means that joy is something altogether different from circumstance. This is what separates happiness, which depends upon one's "happenstance", from joy which does not. Joy is something altogether independent from what happens to someone -- unless what is "happening" is the glorious experience one has of suddenly realizing they are alive and well and eternally at peace in God. "Surprised" is the right word for this realization because what we once thought was the greatest things to be achieved, security and prosperity in this world, are now shown to be what they really are, counterfeits when held up against the light of the eternal life -- a life which now lives in us and is our joy.
On the last night of his life, Jesus spoke of the sadness of the disciples' grief to come. But then he spoke of something deeper, something beyond he events of that fateful night and the next day to come. What he spoke to them about was joy. "And no one can take your joy away," he said.
Joy is deeper then circumstance and happenstance. Deeper than anything that could befall us -- whether poverty or prosperity, security or death. Joy is the gift of a human being alive with and in God; and nothing and no one but God can give or take it away.
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