Unshackled Moments ~ December 13 ~ Bridges Of Joy

When you look at the characteristics and traits of those in bondage, those who are slaves to self destruction in any form, the common denominator is not joy. Addicts and other slaves to self and sin are not known for being a joyous lot. There may be a joyous mask the shows a smile to the world and may even have some people fooled, but in the silence and the dark when the distractions are gone and the energy to keep pretending has been spent, in the moments of clarity and solitude, when the echoes of forced laughter have all fallen silent, there is no joy. What there is at all times is a life driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity (Alcoholics Anonymous, 62).

There is an inherent deficiency and a spiritual sickness that causes our lives to become full of those forms of misery that drive us. It's not that we don't want joy. Oh we do. It is the desire to escape or cure the misery, to fill the emptiness and to divert from sorrow to  gladness that led to the bondage in the first place. Yes, we were born in bondage due to the curse, but we volunteered for heavier chains as we lived for self and looked in all the wrong places and ways to find happiness, peace and love.

There is nothing wrong with happiness. Our ability to experience and appreciate happiness is one of the gifts of the way were created. But happiness is temporary and depends on circumstances. It is an emotional booster. Joy is the fulfillment of the soul that gives delight in life whether we are also experiencing sickness or health, plenty or lack, pleasure or pain. Happiness is good until we expect and demand to stay emotionally high at all times and never feel less than idyllic happiness. Happiness will always fall short when we try to use it to fulfill the needs of the soul rather than simply temporarily lift us mentally and emotionally.

By trying to make the temporary and the emotional and mental lasting and spiritual we have doomed it to destruction. It's like finding a small path with a small bridge that is intended for a person to walk across. It is perfectly suited to help a person get along their journey, if they are on foot. But it was never suited for or capable of holding the weight of a vehicle. To drive across this bridge will lead to destruction. It will collapse and not only fail to further the vehicle on the journey but is also no longer able to serve its original purpose.

Happiness can not bear the weight of joy. It is a light capacity, short bridge. Joy carries us over deep canyons and from peak to peak without us having discard what we have been called to carry. It is a heavy duty bridge. When we try to treat happiness as such, it soon collapses. It can't do anything else. So we chase happiness, and it crumbles beneath the weight of life and we fall into the ditch. We come to believe that joy can not last and the bridges will always fail, but we've been driving on walking paths and failing to see the strong and secure bridges of joy that would hold us.

If we do not stop the insanity of repeating the same action expecting or hoping for a different result, we will break all the tiny happiness bridges and not only will happiness fail to carry the load joy is intended to carry, but we won't be able to walk into happiness either. Even the temporary boost will be gone. But when we surrender to the One who can and will restore us to sanity, free us from captivity and break our bonds, we will discover the ability once more to experience true happiness. It may  happen often and easily. It may not. But either way, let us enjoy it when it comes but not pursue it. Let us pursue deeper relationship with God, and by doing that we will discover the bonus gift of a soul fulfilled. When our souls are fulfilled in Him we can see and travel the bridges of joy across wherever our journey takes us, regardless of the weather, terrain or any other circumstance or situation.



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