How would you define joy?

[Mr. Bultitude]

How would you define joy? And how is it different from happiness? I'd appreciate if you could make sure any answer is definitional rather than simply descriptive (i.e. "it's more lasting" doesn't tell me what joy is.)

 

[Free Christian]

I find joy in reading something in God's Word which I have read before, and then it opens up to me with something that teaches me something or greatly impresses upon me. Like a plant that suddenly bursts into bloom before your very eyes! Joy on my mothers face when we get together for worship and sing to God. I go fishing, I might catch a big trout that put up an amazing fight. That makes me really happy but fades in comparison to the true joy I get from God's Word opening up to me, or seeing the joy in my mothers eyes during worship. Christianity brings me true joy, when I see so many lost about me and I think that God wanted to save me! That's Joy! Or when something happens and I have no doubt that God's hand was involved in it, "He did that for me?" That's Joy!
The world can bring me happiness, but its the Lord who gives me Joy!

 

[Philip]

Joy means living in the now in light of the not-yet.

 

[Elizabeth]

My take, from a time past:

"Loss, physical, mental creep up on us. There is no avoidance possible, no by-passing, of loss. We are all headed to the Great Loss. Wit, money, beauty, power will mean nothing to us at the moment we step, or are pushed, over the edge. It all comes to naught, that which we prize the most, in this silly age.

But there is that which is beyond, that glimmer. That silver land, that strain of unspeakable joy which creeps up on us, unaware, whispering the glorious in the midst of our body-bound hum-drummery.

Have you known it? Have you been looking out a window on a long, pointless day, maybe washing dishes, worrying about bills, kids, fearing the future and there it will come, shaking your mind with a searing joy? And you laugh at your silly self, which was muttering about mud and inanities. You are reminded. And you have strength to totter on to that which loss will bring you, ultimately. We were told from the start. Lose to gain. Lose to gain. Lose to gain. Our Lord is no idle keeper of promise."

 

[Cymro]

A joy unspeakable and gloriously full is a spiritual emotion that necessarily is indescribable.
Our Lord has given it to us in
these words, "my joy I give unto you--that your joy might be full." A gift and grace that no
man can take from us. A heavenly deposit in ones soul that strengthens, " for the joy of the
Lord is our strength." It proceeds from delighting in God as he reveals His Son through His truth.
It is also a reaction to the knowledge and experience of " the love of God being shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit." To quote another," It is the soul of a Christian embracing the soul of Christ
by the two arms of love and desire", and experiencing spiritual communion. It is a soul gratifying
grace often as a result of really worshipping in Spirit and truth.
"Then will I to God's altar go,
to God my chiefest joy;
Yea, God, my God, thy name to praise
my harp I will employ."

 

[ReformedBaptist]

We Want You to Be a Christian Hedonist! - Desiring God
This is joy

 

[a mere housewife]

I think joy for the creature is dependent on the blessedness of God; our joy is in having Him for our portion -- not just in the future (though we do have a future in Him) but now. We may be miserable not only circumstantially but morally -- but even now, He is good.