It's easy to see -- this group is happy. But we don't know them well enough to determine if they have real joy.
What is the difference between happiness and joy?
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Joy is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
Happiness is typically a more fleeting emotion, often sparked by a particular moment or event that brings a sense of excitement or exhilaration. We are happy when things around us are going well.
Although happiness is based upon happenings, joy doesn't simply happen to us.
We have to choose joy and keep choosing it everyday.
Joy comes from the inside. It is a more long-lasting state of being, characterized by contentment and satisfaction with life overall.
The word joy appears eighty-eight times in the Old Testament and fifty-seven times in the New Testament. Biblical joy is choosing to respond to outward circumstances with inner peace.
JOY is not found in things or people -- it's in you!
Joy is more enduring. It's a deep sense of contentment and peace that remains steady even when life gets challenging. Unlike happiness, which is often tied to external events, joy is a state of mind that’s cultivated in a deeper place.
I agree with the someone who said: 'The secret for me, at least, is not to pursue happiness, but to pursue joy. You can’t control happiness, but you can control joy.
No one can infiltrate the things that bring you joy because joy springs from within and happiness lives outside ourselves.
