Let us talk about joy, and especially that kind of it of which Nehemiah
was thinking when he said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." It
is strange that while practically everybody would agree as to the
wholesomeness and the duty of joy in the ordinary sense of the term, to
add the words "of the Lord" to it, seems, to some, completely to alter
its character and in fact to spoil it, to turn it into an unreal sort of
joy which is not true joy at all.
I wish emphatically to protest against such a conception of religious
joy as an injustice to the Father Love of God. The joy of the Lord, as
I understand it, is not different in quality from wholesome human
gladness, it is, in fact, just that gladness deepened and sanctified by
the sense of God, and the knowledge of Him brought to us by Jesus Christ
our Lord. There is not a single innocent and pure source of gladness
open to men and women on this earth but is made to taste sweeter when
they have opened their hearts to the love of God. It is the very crown
of happy living that is reached when a man can say, "My Lord and my
God." Once I have dared to accept the wonderful truth that even for me
the Eternal Father has His place and His plan and His care, every
simplest happiness, every common joy of living, every delight in the
beauty of the world and the pleasures of home and work and
friendship--every one of these takes on a keener edge. It is a
pestilent heresy to declare that a Christian ought to walk through life
like a man with a hidden sickness. On the contrary, there is no one who
has a better right to be joyous and happy-hearted. Do you think it is
for nothing that the "joy of our salvation" is a Bible phrase? And
shall we believe that that salvation is ours and not be mighty glad
about it all the time? What is the good of translating "Gospel" as
"good news" and at the same time living as if religion were a bondage
and a burden grievous to be borne? Of all the strange twists of human
convention, it is surely the strangest to allow ordinary human joy to be
happy and cheerful, and to insist that those whose joy is in the Lord
should pull a long face, and forswear laughter, and crawl along
dolefully as if to the sound of some dirge! The "morning face and the
morning heart" belong of right to the truly religious, and no one ought
to be gladder, come what may, than the man who has made the highest and
best disposal of his little life that any one can make, namely,
surrendered it in faith and obedience to his Lord.
A gloomy, ponderous, stiff religion which looks askance at innocent
merriment and is afraid to pull a long breath of enjoyment has the mark
of "damaged goods" on it somehow, and no one will take it off your
hands. It is not catching, and certainly your children will never catch
it. It is said to be a good test of a religion that it can be preached
at a street corner. But I know a better test than that. Preach it to a
child. Set him in the midst of those who profess it. If their religion
frightens him, freezes the smiles on his lips, and destroys his
happiness, depend upon it, whatever sort of religion it be, it lacks the
essential winsomeness of the religion of Jesus Christ.
I need not say, of course, that I am not pleading for a more hilarious
religious life. And, equally of course, empty frivolity, and the cult
of the continual grin are insufferable things to endure either in the
name of religion or anything else. Not by a single word would I lessen
the condemnation which such aberrations deserve. But I do say, and with
all my heart I believe that a deep, abiding well-spring of
happiness--which our author calls the "joy of the Lord"--is of the very
essence of true religion, and is indeed, what he asserts it, actually
our strength. Actually our strength. Let us be quite clear about that.
The man in whose heart there dwells this best of all joys is a strength
to other people. We don't need any one to prove that to us, I imagine.
We have all been helped and revived many a time merely by contact with
some hearty cheerful soul. Who, for example, that had his choice, would
elect for his family physician a man with a doleful air? Have we not
all found that a doctor's cheery manner was as potent a medicine as any
drug that he called by a Latin name? Ay, and even when we are in
trouble, and our hearts are sad and sore, I think we would all rather
see the friend whose faith in God showed in a brave and buoyant outlook
than one whose religion was of the dowie and despondent sort.
I have heard it said of an employee who had the gift of the joyous heart
that the twinkle of his eyes was worth L100 a year to his firm. I could
easily believe it, though the money value might well have been set at
any figure, seeing that the thing itself is really priceless. Did not
the most famous modern apostle of the duty of happiness--himself a
signal proof that joy is something more than the mere easy overflow of
health and animal spirits--did not Stevenson declare that "by being
happy we sow anonymous benefits," and that "the entrance of such a
person into a room is as if another candle had been lighted?" I take it
the proof is ample that a joyous heart is a strength to others.
But more, it is a strength to oneself. That may not be so obvious, and
yet the result here is even more certain. Ordinary experience tells us
that joy is good for us, that depression and gloom work us bodily harm.
But from one province of scientific study especially there has come a
wonderful array of evidence that makes it as certain as any fact can be
that the happy states of mind do literally add to our strength in quite
measurable directions. There is, in strict fact, no tonic in all the
world like gladness.
That being so, joy, and especially the best kind of it of which Nehemiah
speaks, is not a luxury, not a condition you may legitimately cherish if
you are fortunate enough to possess it. It is a sheer necessity. You
can't do without it. Even to meet your sorrows, even to gird you for
service, even to run your race without fainting, you need the joy of the
Lord, which is strength. And since the Father has stored up such an
abundant supply of it in this world of His, since it is knocking at our
doors every day, and only our distrust and suspicion keep it outside, we
know what to do to secure this good gift of God. We have only to open
our doors to let it in, and give it room.
"So take Joy home
And make a place in thy great heart for her,
And give her time to grow, and cherish her,
Then will she come and oft will sing to thee
When thou art working in the furrows--ay,
Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.
It is a comely fashion to be glad--
Joy is the grace we say to God."