So in teaching my 5th grade class this sunday we covered Psalm 51 as part of the lesson. The prase “Joy of your salvation,” was read and I asked what joy meant. Of course I got the typical answer, happy. Unfortunately I believe that is a very inadequate definition. I believe joy is so much more, yet I suddenly found myself lost for words, because I tried to define it without using the word happy.
Henceforth, I must ask this question, how do you define joy, without using the word happy?
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Here is my stab at this question, though it will still be anything but adequate.
I would say that it is the affections of the heart delighting in the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is having the soul satisfied by Christ’s goodness. Joy is cherishing the manifold perfections of God’s beauty, both the physical one (i.e. a sun set or the Grand Canyon) or the spiritual ones (i.e. God’s mercy, grace, sovereignty, justice and goodness).
I don’t how much that helps, if at all. But that is the only way I know how to describe joy with out using “happy” and not using a thesaurus or dictionary.