Daniel White, City Collective Leader in Leicester, reflects on how authentic joy grows through vulnerability, friendship and life with Jesus. This is part of our series on the fruit of the Spirit (featuring artwork by Daniel).

I think of joy as a nice consequence of something positive. A sweet moment with the kids whilst on holiday. A good film or book. The first sip of coffee in the morning from your favourite mug. Or that laugh that goes so deep it hurts. When I encounter or achieve something good, I hope to experience a natural overflow of joy.

Yet reading that a fruit of the Spirit is joy, I’m left a little stunned. Joy isn’t just an aftertaste. It is the fruit itself.

Why joy matters

I am the kind of person who sees value in a thing based on its usefulness. This may seem a little cold on the surface, but my heart is to determine purpose and meaning in things, bringing to life the reality that our experiences, our lives, our stories, even our possessions all have significance and can play an amazing role in advancing God’s Kingdom.

It may be understandable then that I find joy as a fruit slightly hard to comprehend. As I pursue that which is useful, joy doesn’t fit easily into this category, unlike some of the others listed. I can see reason and meaning behind the fruit of love, of self-control, of patience as we seek to show Jesus to the world.

And more than this, I have fought for so long against the life mantra, ‘Do what makes you happy’. Happiness pursued without thought of the consequences or the impact on those around you. I have experiencedboth sides of the damage this way of thinking can cause: I have been hurt by others choosing personal happiness at my expense, and I too have cast aside the feelings of others in pursuit of my own happiness.

This mindset has meant that, as I sought to obey Jesus and live differently from the world around me, I carried a quiet expectation that wholehearted obedience would require a sacrifice of joy. Yet as I encounterGod’s promises in scripture, he tells me a different story. He wants me to experience life in its fullness (John 10:10), for my joy to be complete (John 16:24), and to receive an oil of joy instead of mourning (Isaiah 61:3).

I am overcome by the love of a heavenly Father who wants my life to be filled with joy. How amazing that he not only desires joy for us, but actively grows it in us. And I trust that as God grows joy within me, he willuse it as I get alongside others to build his Kingdom where he has placed me.  

The pressure to be joyful 

This expectation of joy can become twisted as we live with the ongoing reality of life’s brokenness.

We can come to believe that we should be joyful even when joy feels absent. If we’re struggling, perhaps we think we have failed in some way. So, we develop an ‘I’m fine’ mentality. The pressure to put on a smile and convince the world we’re okay is challenging for everyone, but as followers of Jesus we may feel it even more keenly. We can fear that if we do not appear joyful, we are somehow giving a bad impression of Jesus to those around us. So, we try to drum it up within ourselves, wear a smile-shaped mask to reassure the world, and ourselves, that everything is fine between us and God.

We hide the messy things because we believe that they only produce sadness and grief, and we are supposed to be filled with joy. We only reveal the ‘good bits’ of following Jesus.  

Over the years, I have seen how easy it is to hide our brokenness behind the cover of false joy. I’ve seen it in those I’ve walked alongside and in myself. But pretending never brings people closer. Instead, it createsdistance. A barrier forms that says, ‘I am not willing to be myself with you’ and ‘You cannot be yourself with me.'

Where joy grows

Yet I have come to understand that joy grows from the very cracks of life we try to cover up. 

As I have taken the first step to be vulnerable and been honest about things I may be going through with those I come alongside, not only have I felt better, but the other person is put at ease and able to share freely about their lives too.

When we let go of this fake version of joy and create a more honest space, where difficult topics are discussed and processed together, something deeper begins to emerge: authentic joy. The joy of friendship, of meaningful conversation, of being seen, understood and loved more fully.