Advent Week 1: Cultivating Joy

At our church this year, we greeted the first Sunday in Advent with the theme of joy.

Joy isn’t typically where the Advent discussions, sermons, or candle lighting begin. It’s typically a theme that comes later in the season. But, as my husband prayed about it, that’s where he felt led to start. Not only was it a fitting starting point, it also gave us the perfect opportunity to make “Joy to the World” our first congregational worship song of the season. What could be better?

The whole sermon was good, but one point really hit home for me: joy must be cultivated, and that cultivation takes time. I’ve been pondering this thought ever since hearing it and scrawling it in my sermon notes.

The concept of cultivated joy shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us. While happiness and joy do manifest in similar ways, happiness can come in an instant — and disappear just as quickly. Joy, while its seeds are often most easily planted during times of happiness, takes more effort. More intentionality. More deliberate and focused attention.

In fact, I think, for this very reason, joy might be a bit harder to truly cultivate in times of exuberant happiness. It’s hard during times of grief, as well. I’d much rather go into a season of grief with my joy deeply rooted than to try to grow it during that time. But in seasons of great happiness, I often neglect to invest in joy. It’s so easy to just be happy.

Of course, in the in-between times, we often just work through the motions and don’t pay much attention to the cultivation needs then, either. Life is fine. We have happy moments and sad moments. We try to grow spiritually and move through the things God sets before us. But, just as in moments of happiness and seasons of grief, we don’t work to cultivate joy.

At least, I frequently don’t.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about myself. When I’m not actively cultivating joy, I still cultivate other things. Things that don’t take as much effort. That feel like less work. That aren’t as exhausting.

But the payoff is atrocious. Because those things that are easier to cultivate are devastating for my soul when they are not paired with joy.

Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad in and of themselves. There are negative things that are easy to cultivate as well, but those are obvious. We should know not to cultivate selfishness and bitterness and anger and hate.

But there are other things that seem good and healthy. It’s not bad to cultivate a sense of self and the care that goes along with it. It’s not bad to cultivate the empathy that is such an inherent part of my personality. (I know that can be harder for those who do not have an empathetic personality, so this is definitely very personal to me.) Cultivating skills and habits and hobbies are all very good.

But, when I cultivate those things without incorporating joy — or any of the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, per Galatians 5:22-23) — they can all foster the selfishness that I do not ever want to intentionally cultivate.

Yes, devastating is definitely an appropriate word.

I’m far too guilty of that, though. And that truth is what hit me yesterday during the sermon. Over the past few years, I have attempted to heal from hurts, grow in Christ, and notice the needs of others. I’ve sought to regain a sense of peace and calm even in seasons of loneliness and aches.

But somewhere along the way, I think I stopped actively cultivating joy. I tried to ride on what already existed without nourishing it so it would continue. Eventually, it began to dry up. The sad thing is that I didn’t really notice. I was so caught up in those moments where there was a lack of happiness that I didn’t pay attention to the fact that my joy — the joy of belonging to my precious Lord and Savior and being held in His miraculous arms and guided by His perfect wisdom and protected by His amazing and vast greatness — was fading from lack of attention.

As a result, my attempts to find healing and growth and empathy have fallen flat and left me disillusioned, the bearer of a perpetual ache over the pain in this world.

Joy changes that. It doesn’t remove the hurt. But it reminds us who ultimate holds the hurt. It works the Lord’s healing in a way that nothing else can. It allows us to see lessons of growth in places we never would have thought to look.

I must get back to cultivating joy.

Where do I start? Well, my wise husband mentioned three things in his sermon (which you can watch here, if you so desire): embrace and share forgiveness, be a conduit for the love of Christ, and invest the time cultivation requires rather than expecting it to just happen.

Obviously, that’s not an exhaustive list because the cultivation of joy is an ongoing, lifelong process. But it’s a powerful starting point. I’m ready to get back to cultivating.