"Let the Joy of the Lord be your strength" .......huh?

Have you ever had anyone (usually a well-meaning friend, Christian leader or counsellor) say to you “Let the joy of the Lord be your strength”? I have, and was reminded of this recently when a dear friend told me she too had experienced the mixed emotions hearing this can bring.

Of course, it’s a scripture (Nehemiah 8:10), so you can’t argue with it. And usually the person saying it speaks with such a confidence that suggests that if only you were as spiritually mature as them, you too would experience this magical ‘joy’ of the Lord. And to compound matters it is actually often said with genuine care and concern for your wellbeing.

So, how come you don’t experience this joy? It must be because you don’t pray enough, or read the bible enough. God must be really disappointed in you because otherwise you would feel this joy that it seems everyone else knows. If only you could experience this illusive joy, you would then be able to be strong. But how can you be strong when you can’t find the joy? And because you don’t have the joy, well that must mean you're not walking close with God, which means the depression must definitely be all your fault…cos (another common myth) if you are doing the right thing spiritually you won't have depression. And so the thought-cycle continues.

Well, I went for many years thinking this way…feeling guilty and believing that there was something wrong with me. I just didn’t feel this joy in God. Even when other people would come out of a worship time and make comments about how amazing the worship was, I didn’t feel it. My worship was pretty well all hard work, because I just didn’t feel the rapture that I saw in others. And this was even during the times that I wasn’t struggling with depression. And of course when I was going through the depression well, there was no joy to be seen anywhere.

Until one day I believe God showed me something amazing. There may be people who would argue with this, but for me it was a revelation. Firstly let me say that, yes, there are many times the word joy is used in the bible and that Paul spoke of joy as one of the fruits of the spirit. Which I believe means that as “a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Mathew 7:17), so our fruit, as we walk with the Holy Spirit will be one or more of the nine listed in Galations.  It does not say that you will show all nine all the time, or that if you do not show any one of them that you are not walking with God. We don’t experience those fruits every minute of every day. Otherwise how could we fulfil what Paul exhorts when he tells us “…weep with those that weep” (Romans 12:15) or where Solomon tells us that there is  “…a time to weep” (Eccesiasties 3: 4).

So this mystery of joy was shown to me - in Hebrews 2:2 the writer speaking of Jesus says “…who for the joy set before Him endured the cross…”.  Now this was curious. What joy was set before him? Certainly not the agony of going through the cross experience. I believe it is referring to the joy He would have when He was with His Father, in heaven. And I believe that is what the term “The joy of the Lord shall be your strength”, can be interpreted as. I know, without a shadow of a doubt that I will one day be in eternity with my Father and then I will experience joy.

Now I know that many Christians believe that the 'joy of the Lord' can and should be experienced here on earth, and I don't disagree in theory with that, but when you are in the midst of deep depression and  you are not experiencing that joy knowing that you will one day experience it is a help. For several years I have held onto this and it has indeed been a strength to me.