Are You Choosing Joy, or Chasing Selfishness?

Verse: John 16:33 Song: Joy in the Morning by Tauren Wells and Elevation Worship

Written by: Wyatt Drost

Man Series, Post 2

God’s been working on me in a lot of ways, and it’s time to humbly share this part of my life with you too. 

The other day I was lost in thought and wrestling with how you actually live a life of Joy. How do we not base our happiness on worldly things? How can anyone possibly not let their circumstances dictate their attitude? 

It was a part of me that needed refining and maturing, and what better time than the present to kneel before Jesus and ask him to do a work in my heart. 

Just a little background on me, I’ve been guilty of selfishly living for my own happiness, and basing that happiness on my current  life circumstances. 

Living in a fallen and broken world, I’ve had a great deal of both great life experience, and less than desirable life experiences. I also have to admit that I have an overly critical eye, and typically see things through a negative lens. I often first notice the flaw in something or someone rather than the positive. But I don’t usually voice my criticisms, I keep it inside and let it impact my heart, making it resentful and unkind. Thankfully though, God has provided me with wise men in my life that have helped me to see this issue in my heart, so that I have come to see the wrongness of it. But now I need to cleanse this part of my heart too. So I’m bringing it to the light, and who knows, maybe it will encourage you to do the same. 

A memory that has been on repeat in my mind, is one from when I was about 8 or so. For the first time I was asked if I viewed the glass as half empty or half full? 

Well, obviously the glass was half empty! I remember thinking, “why was half full even an option?!” 

Your Mindset is Your Choice

My mindset has often gotten in the way of having a positive outlook on life, and the part I’ve struggled to humbly accept is that this has been, and always will be, my own choice. 

Positive or negative; I get to choose my mindset. And whatever choice I make, it will impact my life and the people around me. 

The wall I’ve repeatedly run into this past year, and the conviction I’ve had, is to change my mindset. I need to choose to live in a state of Joy!

But how? How do you live like that? I mean, I’ve heard it talked about, it’s been preached about, and it’s in countless worship songs, yet I still have struggled to have joy in my life and actually experience it. I’ve had moments of what feels like joy, but It’s elusive to me and I’ve been desperate to taste the goodness of its fruit. 

What I’ve come to realize, is that I’ve been trying to create joy myself through my own life experiences and circumstances.. All of which are things considered to be well intended in our world. All things that in my experience, men are encouraged to do… 

“Going camping would be great. We enjoy that.  Let’s get a camper so we can go have fun. Boating was always enjoyable, let’s get a boat and go boating. I like golf, so I’m going to go golf and hope that I enjoy it more than I want to snap a club. Hunting and being out in the woods is always relaxing, I’ll go and do that and hope it fulfills me. Who cares that your wife has been home with the kids all week, spend the weekend doing what you want. You deserve to be happy. ” 

Men, see why who you have speaking into your life matters? For most of my life, these are the messages I was filled with. Think of yourself and your own happiness, and then you will be fulfilled. But it didn’t work… 

I recently read Ecclesiastes, and the closing remarks Solomon made have been forever seared into my mind. He experienced and did everything under the sun. He didn’t hold back from the things the world says will bring us happiness and satisfaction. He went all in for his own selfishness, trying to seek happiness. Money, acceptance, elicit sex, worldly success, relationships, accumulating stuff, experiences, vacations, a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte (men can like them too!). 

Okay, maybe he didn’t have Starbucks, but Solomon tells us that in all his wisdom and experience, these things are all fleeting. Like chasing after the wind. Nothing of this world will ever be able to bring us the unexplainable joy that can only be given by the Lord. It is after all, a fruit of the SPIRIT. Not of the physical world. Not of this world, but of a different one. 

We can’t manufacture joy on our own, it comes only from above. 

In a recent sermon, our pastor said “we can’t live for joy in our circumstances, but happiness will occasionally be a side effect of living fully for the Lord.” I found that thought very intriguing. When I’m living for my happiness, and trying to do anything and everything based on my own fulfillment of it, what I’m really doing is living for myself. I’m acting purely out of selfishness and what I can get for me. And you know what? I’ve even defended my selfishness in the pursuit of happiness. I’ve even excused my grumpiness because my current situation hadn’t changed to the way that I wanted. If my circumstance wasn’t going exactly how I wanted, why would I be joyful?

You hear it, right? My deeply ingrained struggle with selfishness. It needed uprooting, and thankfully God has been working to do just that. 

You see, not only was I acting out of selfishness, but I was also showing that I wasn’t grateful for what I had, thinking that I was entitled to whatever I wanted. NEWS FLASH! The only thing we’re truly entitled to in this world is strife and hardship. This world doesn’t promise you anything good. How can it? Satan is of the world and there’s no part of him that is good or wants good for you. He walks around like a prowling lion looking for someone to devour. He wants to kill, steal, and destroy us. I’m not sure about you, but none of that sounds encouraging, or life giving to me.

But God. 

But God, our Heavenly Father, is good. 

He is of a different world, and he can only be good. He wants us to prosper, he wants us to have eternal life and walk in his righteousness. Because of this truth, we can still experience good in the broken world that we live in! And it is in this very season of endless struggle, that I am learning that. 

I’ve experienced many of God’s graces and undeserved mercy that he brought out of brokenness. God can bring good out of the difficult things we experience! What’s even better is that we can then take what we’ve been given, and pass that same undeserved grace and mercy to those in our lives. We’re image bearers of God, and we can reflect his light in a dark and broken world! If you can’t find joy in any of that, we’ve got some problems on the basic truths about our heavenly Father my friend.

So if I can’t manufacture joy, and it can only come from the Lord, how do I obtain it? How do I fully experience joy? 

Well, what I’m learning is that it’s an ongoing process of living fully for God. Oh how frustrating it’s been for me to continually find this to be a theme in my life! It only comes from a place of gratitude and thankfulness for what God has done, is currently doing, and will continue to do for me throughout my life. It’s living for His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven, not Wyatt’s will on earth as it’s done in Wyatt’s world. The former will provide a much greater joy and fulfillment, and will forever change my legacy that I get to pass on through my children.

If I live only for myself and my will, that legacy ends and dies with me when I die. I need to live my life fully for the Lord, and I can only do that if I’m living in alignment with the Lord. 

The part I play in this equation is quite simple. 

It starts and ends with me making a choice. Each moment requires me to choose whether I’m living for the Lord, or living for myself. Am I truly aiming to swing the pendulum in favor of choosing to live for the Lord and doing what he wants? Even when it seems inconvenient? Even when I don’t want to? Even when it requires me to sacrifice my preferences? Even when it doesn’t make sense? The only thing we truly have control over is ourselves, and what we do. Which also implies that action is required. 

You can ask for it, you can think about it, you can pray for it, you can whine about it, you can do whatever you want, but don’t expect your circumstances to change until you do. The Holy Spirit can move you, but you still need to act. It’s not something that happens passively. Joy isn’t elusive, it’s only a choice away. 

So what choices are you making?

What I’ve found all too often to be true, is the joy that I do experience, completely disappears whenever I deal with envy, selfishness, greed, laziness, or anything else that takes my focus off of Jesus. The answer then? I need to keep my eyes on Jesus. I need to embrace and express my gratitude for what he’s given me. I need to be content with what I have and not worry about what I don’t have. I have an amazing wife living for the Lord and growing spiritually, I have three healthy children that are blessings and a gift from a loving Father. I have a healthy community and Godly men willing to pour into me. Our needs are met, what more do I really need? I need only to take the time to stop, and see all of these things, to remember to choose gratitude. 

The only greater joy is realizing how broken and messed up I am and that I have no right to be loved by a perfect, righteous, and holy Father. But God. He calls us his children. He sent his only son to die a sinner’s death on a cross. A brutal torture that would leave any of us begging for it to end. Until we realize the actual weight of our sin, and what it actually does to us and those around us, sin’s true cost, we will never fully understand the importance of Jesus. The importance of the life he lived, and the life he gave. The importance of his death, burial, and resurrection. I would even go so far as to say that you may never truly experience joy, or know why we should have joy in the first place. 

I never used to understand the people that said they were filled with joy. Now, I’m starting to see it. We get to experience joy when we understand how blessed we are by Jesus’ sacrifice. We can choose to live the life God has for us, that’s better than our own plan. 

Just remember, we only find joy when we stop living for ourselves, and instead choose to  live for the Lord!

"I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33 (NLT)