bridget short

This is a very important question…when you start to dig deeper and aim higher the answer is nothing short of astounding. But, I regress and begin with what joy is NOT: Joy is not merriment. Else the scorn at the statement ‘Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,” would not make sense. Merriment is but a fleeting happiness here one moment and gone the next. It must forever be sought out and outdone.

Joy on the other hand is everlasting. It does not fade with the evenings festivities. It does not experience a roller coster of peaks and valleys. Rather, it is a constant increase, like good stock that no matter the day to day effects on it over time will always increase.

A deeper study of the term Joy (when it comes to scriptural refrences, expecially those comming direct from God through his prophets) Leads me to believe that Joy is Everlasting Happiness, and for it to be everlasting happiness must needs be that it is Eternal and Exhalted.

Eternal…because it cannot end or else it would cease to be Everlasting and Exhalted because without which it would not have continual increase and therefore would not be that good stock and Happiness would be lost.

I look at it this way: When are we truely happy? After searching every possible answer I have come to the conclusion it is only when we are fufilling our true and God given potential. I assume this is true for every species on the planet. A pansy seed is ment to grow and develop into a pansy..if it does not it becomes something less, something diesased or unnatural.

Each of those words, less, diseased, unnatural…conjures feelings contrary to that of happiness and joy. Thus, it is when we do what we were ment to do that we excell, are blessed, and happy. However there is a hitch here. We must choose to do it.

I have known several dancers who though excelled at physical movement and had every advantage and potential to become great, were miserable because they felt forced into following a path that they did not choose. My brother on the other had choose to pursue a desire to play football. Now while his potential in the given sport was not as great as many others…he’s under 6ft for one. He did have a measurable amount of potential in that field.

When he was told by others that playing first string in highschool would be the end of his experience he refused to give up. He knew he had not achieved his potential for the field and would not give it up until he had achieved maximum with it. He walked on to a college football team and after a year had earned a scholarship spot. Many of us closest to him felt that he had achieved his full potential in the field and congratulated him. It was not easy for him, but he was always happy.

Even when times were rough, and no one believed in him…I could see that inside he was content and happy. Much more than the athletic guys I watched the games with who had given up on their potential and always complained with regret how they could do it better. So sad.

So here we are to have joy, then why is it so difficult?

2 Nephi 2:27 says, “Wherefore men are free according to the flesh:and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.”

So not only is Joy a choice, but Joy is the result or outcome of a choice. When we choose eternal life and liberty (freedom from sin)..we recieve Joy. And yet there is one who desires not our Joy but rather our misery. All things in their opposite, afterall. It is inner critic, the little devil on our shoulder…pointing our faults, hiding our potential from us. Encouraging us away from being what we are ment to be.

To use the army slogan, Be All You Can Be is such a great way to remember just how to have Joy!