The Challenge of Choosing Joy
Father Lehi taught that “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). But if joy is our very reason for existing, why is it often so elusive for so many? Many readers of this column see their lives as the result of unfulfilled promise or squandered potential. A missionary returns from his or her field of labor and imagines a world of limitless opportunities, eager to reward him or her for being a good and faithful servant. He or she might imagine finishing college and embarking on a successful career, marrying in the temple, and presiding over an abundant Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner decades in the future, surrounded by loved ones in a spirit of unmitigated joy.
Twenty years on, sometimes a marriage that seemed so promising has turned cold. Perhaps a spouse or children have left the Church. Sometimes death has taken a spouse or a child sooner that we might have anticipated. Perhaps a once faithful spouse has grown weary of the responsibilities of marriage and children and sought new adventures or personal validation with other partners. Mental health concerns, substance abuse issues, or pornography may have wreaked havoc on relationships. A single parent in his or her 50s or 60s who has spent decades outside the workforce may wonder where to turn for sustenance, support, and beginning a new career at a time when he or she expected to be retired and traveling with a loved one. The list of things we find personally disappointing, frightening, and even devastating is perilously long. Joy is an intentional choice, and there are principles we must embrace to make the choice meaningful:
Choose Jesus Christ First
How are we to understand an existence where our purpose is to experience joy, when the realities of our daily life often seem calculated to bring misery? Our brain is designed more for survival than for happiness—so we worry. We are often stressed out, anxious, and hypervigilant. We are even anxious about things that are not truly dangerous but feel dangerous because of stored trauma in our bodies—and our internal security system over-functions to keep us safe.
How can we feel joy when it seems like the circumstances of mortality make it so difficult? In his October 2016 talk in General Conference, Joy and Spiritual Survival, President Nelson said:
My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.
When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation, which President Thomas S. Monson just taught us, and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy. We feel it at Christmastime when we sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” And we can feel it all year round. For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy! (Emphasis added.)
President Nelson taught that it is our focus and not our circumstances that determine our joy. And President Nelson suggests that we focus on Jesus Christ. May I gently suggest that President Nelson’s counsel means more than simply being a loyal member of the Church and actively participating. The Church provides access to a wealth of resources to help us focus on Jesus Christ. But it is our choice whether or not to utilize those resources to focus our hearts and minds on His ministry and message of joy.
Father Lehi similarly wrote:
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 (2 Nephi 2:27).
Lehi testified that “joy” was the purpose of our existence two verses before he said we were free to choose it—by choosing Christ. The great Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, wrote that:
The doctrine of the Fall (both of man and of some ‘gods’ ‘eldils’ or ‘angels’) is the only satisfactory explanation. Evil begins, in a universe where all was good, from free will, which was permitted because it makes possible the greatest good of all. The corruption of the first sinner consists not in choosing some evil thing (there are no evil things for him to choose) but in preferring a lesser good (himself) before a greater (God). The Fall is, in fact, Pride. The possibility of this wrong preference is inherent in the [very] fact of having, or being, a self at all.
C.S. Lewis, Letter to Joyce Pearce, July 20, 1943, in The C. S. Lewis Collection: Biographical Works: The Eight Titles Include: Surprised by Joy; A Grief Observed; All My Road Before Me; Letters to an American of C. S. Lewis Volumes I, II, and III (p. 5232) (HarperCollins). Lewis’s words echo the eternal irony Jesus Christ declared, saying “whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). Finding joy lies, in no small measure, in repenting of the idolatrous worship of “self,” and place God on the throne. Also, putting ourselves in our true relationship to God is the only way to clearly see the truth. Putting self at the center of the universe is like looking down a row of telephone poles and thinking the one nearest to me is the biggest because it looks biggest from my own perspective. That kind of distortion can only be escaped by changing the premise upon which we see the world.
Choose Love – Embrace Pain When Necessary
Alma wrote “I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy” (Alma 29:9). Our moments of greatest joy are in seeing those we love make choices that we hope will lead them to experience joy also (1 Nephi 8:12). But what about those moments in life when those we love disappoint us? A spouse leaves for another partner. Perhaps you relied on that spouse for financial support; and now you are left to fend for yourself after being out of the work force for decades. How do you feel when a child leaves the church and begins living a very different life? How will you deal with the emotions that come when a beloved spouse or child dies? President Nelson said that our joy depends less on the circumstances of our lives and more on the focus of our lives. Is that true even in such horrific circumstances as I have described?
Interestingly, after Alma testified that his joy was in helping others come to repentance, he testified that “I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me” and:
I also remember the captivity of my fathers; for I surely do know that the Lord did deliver them out of bondage, and by this did establish his church; yea, the Lord God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did deliver them out of bondage. Yea, I have always remembered the captivity of my fathers; and that same God who delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians did deliver them out of bondage (Alma 29:11-12).
These verses teach me that sometimes the Lord’s anointed are in “captivity” circumstances (2 Nephi 2:27) they did not choose. But, implied in these words, is a promise of deliverance. Elder Neal A. Maxwell began his October 1986 talk God Will Yet Reveal with the phrase “The holy scriptures represent mankind’s spiritual memory.” We remember the captivity of the children of Israel so we will understand that being God’s people does not guarantee a trouble-free life. But we also remember these things to help us remember that we are not alone and claim our Father in Heaven’s promises of deliverance. Important character traits are built in times of adversity.
A little over two years ago, I lost my sweet 24-year-old son Henry in a rock-climbing accident. At that time, I was in the middle of urgently needing to change jobs. The grief I felt at Henry’s death was the deepest pain I have ever felt. In such horrific circumstances, one might think “after two divorces, the loss of a little brother to cancer, losing everything financially (twice), and a series of other misfortunes, why this?” A few times I did think about other people I knew who seemed to have easier lives than me. But the idea that “it wasn’t meant to be this way” is a heavy and painful thought.
In his 2012 talk Because I Live, Ye Shall Live Also, Elder Shayne M. Bowen discussed his feelings about the tragic death of his infant son. He thought “This isn’t fair! How could God do this to me? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” When well-meaning people said “I know how you feel,” Elder Bowen thought to himself “You have no idea how I feel. Just leave me alone.” But he found that his understandable anger and self-pity to be debilitating. He testified that “Through very personal sacred experiences, the Lord gave me a new heart, and even though it was still lonely and painful, my whole outlook changed.” That change of heart is a tender mercy from a loving Father.
Elder Bowen continued “Sometimes people will ask, ‘How long did it take you to get over it?’ The truth is, you will never completely get over it until you are together once again with your departed loved ones.” I can testify to the truth of this statement. Over time, the deep and almost unbearable pain morphs into a mournful longing. That feeling is not ever-present, but it arises in moments when memories are triggered, and feelings are tender—and tears start flowing. Elder Bowen said “Wouldn’t it be tragic if we didn’t feel great sorrow when we lose a child? How grateful I am to my Father in Heaven that He allows us to love deeply and love eternally.” Grief is the price we pay for love—and it is worth it. As President Nelson said in his 1992 talk, Doors of Death, “The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.” I know this is true.
If I could somehow go back to 1994 when Henry was born and make the decision to be his father or not—even knowing that I would lose him and experience the excruciating grief of losing a child—I would choose without hesitation to be his father. The pain is deep because the love is deeper. You may be better equipped to love now than you were before you experienced your loss. Sometimes I feel grief and pain over his loss. That is part of the deal. But I also feel exultant joy that I got to be his father, and I feel joy when I think of the memories we built together.
We could just as easily say “The only way to take sorrow out of [divorce] is to take love out of [marriage].” We don’t suffer at the loss of a marriage because of broken promises. We suffer because of broken hearts and broken dreams. We can learn things about love through loss that we cannot learn in any other way. But, having said that, suffering a loss does not mean the joy is gone forever. But it does mean acceptance of the loss and embracing that joy remains your purpose. You can say to your Father in Heaven “I don’t understand, but I trust you.” We can intentionally embrace the thought that God sees farther than we do, and that he would not do anything to us that is not an act of love. As Paul wrote to the Romans “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Rejoice
Joy is a state of being. Rejoice is a verb. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one definition of rejoice is “To feel or show great joy or delight; to express happiness; to be full of joy, to be extremely glad; to exult. intransitive. With infinitive” (emphasis added). “Rejoice” is an active verb. Rejoicing is not only having joy—but choosing it, expressing it, embracing it, and being deliberately thankful will increase our joy.
My grandfather died in 2006. He and my grandmother raised 10 children on a rancher’s income. I know that wasn’t easy, but they rarely, if ever, complained. They had over 60 grandchildren, so I have a lot of cousins. When we all gathered for Grandpa’s funeral, one of my uncles read a portion of a letter he got from Grandpa while he was a missionary in Japan. In that letter, Grandpa said that every person has certain gifts to help spread the gospel and added that, “My greatest gift is enthusiasm.” I don’t think I had ever heard him say that and probably hadn’t even thought about it before. But I instantly recognized it as a precious piece of self-insight from my grandfather. He was good at rejoicing. He was generally optimistic and enthusiastic about the gospel and its destiny to change the world. He was not super emotionally expressive. He rarely said “I love you.” That was not his gift. But he was openly grateful for all the “blessings” he had been given. And we all knew what he meant by that. He meant his family—every single person—and the blessings of the restored gospel that would allow us to remain a family into eternity. He was enthusiastic and upbeat about all his children and grandchildren and their activities.
Gratitude is not just good manners—it is the key to happiness. Intentionally rejoicing in the goodness of God and all we have been given creates a greater consciousness of the good that is in our lives. We can only enjoy any good thing—whether a relationship with a loved one or a cool new car—to the extent that we appreciate it. If we sort of go along taking things for granted, we don’t really enjoy it. We just get upset when we notice something isn’t working. Gratitude is a way of noticing and appreciating our blessings that gives us reason to celebrate and feel joy as it grows within us.
Joy is the purpose of your existence. You can find it. Remember to: (1) Choose Jesus Christ first; (2) Choose love and embrace pain when necessary; and (3) Choose to rejoice.
Elder Bowen quoted Preach My Gospel for the promise that “as we rely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, He can help us endure our trials, sicknesses, and pain. We can be filled with joy, peace, and consolation. All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ” (emphasis added).
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About the Author
Jeff Teichert, and his wife Cathy Butler Teichert, are the founders of “Love in Later Years,” which ministers to Latter-day Saint single adults seeking peace, healing, and more joyful relationships. They are co-authors of the Amazon bestseller Intentional Courtship: A Mid-Singles Guide to Peace, Progress and Pairing Up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeff and Cathy each spent nearly a decade in the mid-singles community and they use that experience to provide counsel and hope to mid-singles and later married couples through written articles, podcasts, and videos. Jeff and Cathy are both Advanced Certified Life Coaches and have university degrees in Family & Human Development. They are the parents of a blended family that includes four handsome sons, one lovely daughter-in-law, and two sweet little granddaughters.
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Website: http://www.loveinlateryears.com/
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