Finding Joy

Consider what you might do if one Saturday afternoon, your doorbell suddenly rang. Lurching out of your armchair, you shuffle to the door and pull it open. To your shock and amazement, you are confronted with glaring lights, video cameras and a guy holding an over-sized check for ten million dollars. Against all odds, you have won the sweepstakes, the lottery, the big cash giveaway. What do you think might be your first reaction?

The film shot of most of these big winners usually shows them with their mouths and their eyes wide open, dancing around while screaming "I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" Two conflicting emotions race through their systems at the same time: first, their disbelief that stems from the cultivated rationale that "Nobody ever wins these things" and "The odds against winning are astronomical," coupled with, second, unbridled joy - "Yes, yes, yes, it's really happened to me," "Our lives are changed forever," "It's what we've always hoped for!"

Sweepstakes winners are probably our best current example of how people look and react when they "disbelieve for joy."

Now, let's tell the truth. When we consider all the possible places we might find ourselves surprised by joy and disbelieving for joy, is church the first place we think of? Perhaps we hope to encounter joy at some special family function? Or when seeing old friends? Or by catching sight of a beautiful sunset? Slogging to church services early Sunday morning probably isn't our first pick of potentially joyful moments in life.

And that is our own fault. Church should be the place where we expect to be shaken by the Spirit and tickled to our toes by the power of the Good News of the gospel. But the church has allowed itself to become stodgy instead of scintillating, cerebral instead of celebratory, respectable instead of rambunctious. We have trudged along the well-worn path of predictability for so long now that the church is operating with a dangerously high delight deficit.

Look around, and we will see that life is overflowing with what Howard Hanger of the Jubilee Community calls "LPPs . . . Little Pleasure Possibilities." Why don't we renew our commitment to creating some of these LPPs in the midst of our church. LPPs are one way we can begin to slowly dig our way out of the delight deficit that haunts our church and hollows out each one of our souls. Unfortunately, the delight deficit throughout our culture is so great that it really takes pathetically little effort to inject unexpected joy into the lives of others. God created us to live life abundantly, partaking in joys big and small. Let’s take some time to spread some of that joy today.