the frantic construction of a palisade between God and my own selfishness

i'm starting to come to the realization that joy isn't necessarily a sum of your happiness over a certain period of time. It's not the amount of fun we have or achieving our goal of frowning less and smiling more. I think that it may be part of it, but when i look back on the most joyful times in my life and back on the joyful times of Paul and Daniel and Isaiah, i can't say that it was because there was some overabundance of sunshine and unusually green grass that they found on the other side of some white picket fence.

cause in all honesty, when we're trying our best to do what God wants

(at least in my personal experience)

anything in overabundance is scarce except maybe second chances and undeserved love.

and joy.

cause i mean, my happiness doesn't come from myself. it's difficult if not impossible to take no other resource but ourselves and flip our mood to be something authentically good. Why? because the center of our discontent isn't anything outside of ourselves. we can blame everything, but ultimately it's because we are doing too much or too little of something.

Alcohol and over-socialization are only two of the virtually fool-proof ways to distract ourselves from the fact that the joy we have falls short of what it is we're actually craving.

what i'm trying to work out is that what we're craving
this comfort,
this sense of belonging,
this sense of identity,
the sense of accomplishment,
and a means to reach all of these,
and even though we can fill them with all of our stuff (that's always really cumbersome and really, really empty,) something always ends up falling out or falling short.

In between the lamentation or discontentment we call our short lived high "joy."

but for some reason or another, when i tie a blindfold around my eyes and march to the beat this ancient drummer that i'm trying so hard to know and understand, all the things that i've convinced myself that matter like financial comfort, my dignity, or my own plans for my ministry end up building a barricade between myself and the life and Christ have for me.

such a bulwark keeps us far too focused on ourselves, and i think that is the root of our discontentment and the ultimate obstruction of our joy.

just an observation.