Does anyone remember this ad promoting driving safety a few years back?

Bobby McFerrin’s tender tones sharply juxtapose the footage of traffic accidents that progressively worsen as the ad goes on. The message “don’t worry, be happy” sounds good, but pushing a little deeper it is fairly problematic and quite frankly unhelpful advice at the best of times! The crumpled bonnets and smashed glass serve as a stark reminder that there are some things in life that are far from fleeting. In fact, some things in life are terrible. They shake us to the core. And to advise someone to be happy in those moments is like telling a gazelle to chill out with a lion bearing down upon it.

So what can be said? Well, firstly, it should be said that words are often altogether unhelpful in times of suffering and mourning. And the important thing is not to trivialise the pain with trite reassurances of: ‘there, there’, ‘she’ll be right’, or ‘don’t worry, be happy.’

But this isn’t to say that these times in our lives are entirely without hope or that joy can’t penetrate the darkest place. Unlike happiness, joy is not an absence of sadness but rather is an outworking of hope in the midst of sadness and despair.

In the book of Acts, Luke even seems to suggest that one should not just rejoice in suffering but also at suffering, particularly suffering in the name of Jesus:

“The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” (Acts 5:41)

Joy is intimately linked with hope. In his letter to the Romans, Pauls says “be joyful in hope” (Rom 12:12). And in John’s gospel, Abraham “rejoiced at the thought of seeing [Jesus’] day” (John 8:56).

It’s almost like joy originates in the future — in the completion of the age when all will be made right. On that day, joy will be unconstrained! It’s that future that we hope for. And when we hope for it, some of that joy penetrates into our current world. It’s like a foretaste of all the goodness to come. Maybe that’s why it’s a fruit of the Spirit, because it’s an outpouring of God’s Spirit at work here and now, bringing about God’s future.

All this to say, that joy is not absent suffering. Rather it is a product of enduring suffering in hope — trusting in God and being thankful that this current reality is not our final reality. Which means our lived experiences (the good AND the bad) really matter. Through them we encounter God’s Spirit, we become stronger, and we taste God’s future.

A Russian philosopher, Nicolas Berdyaev says:

“It is in what I experience of life, in the trials I suffer, and in my search for reality, that my spirit is formed and moulded…I am enriched by my experience even if it has been fearful and tormenting.”

According to Berdyaev, the resulting joy and happiness of having endured suffering is different as a result. It is deeper, more real.

I don’t think any of this makes suffering any easier when you’re in the midst of it. Life still sucks at times (and more often than not that is all that needs to be said!). But through the suckiness, joyful hoping can endure and it is this that the gospel offers us.

I am struck by this beautiful prayer by Dag Hammarskjōld. Dag was the General Secretary of the U.N. during a very tumultuous time. He wrote this mere months before he died mysteriously (and VERY suspiciously) when his plane crashed in Africa. At the time of its writing, Dag was working slavishly putting out international fires and it was earning him his fair share of enemies. This was what he wrote (a bit of context is that he loved mountain-climbing):

Tired
And lonely,
So tired
The heart aches.
Meltwater trickles
Down the rocks,
The fingers are numb,
The knees tremble.
It is now,
Now, that you must not give in.

On the path of the others
Are resting places,
Places in the sun
Where they can meet.
But this
Is your path,
And it is now,
Now, that you must not fail.

Weep
If you can,
Weep,
But do not complain.
The way chose you —
And you must be thankful.

Suffering — but through it all thankfulness which is joy’s outworking.
Words to live by.
Thank you, Dag.

Arohanui,
Jordan