Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds…(James 1:2)

The Greek word translated here is χαρά chara (Strong’s 5479) and it means gladness, delight and extreme joyousness.

Joy comes from the French, joie, which in turn derives from the Latin gaudia.  The PIE (proto Indo-European) root here is gau, and is also found in the Greek gaio, ‘to rejoice’.

The followers of Christ are told they will have joy but it does not always feel that way.  Many are not happy, but then is happiness the same as joy?  In fact, Jesus warned his followers to expect hostility and explains it because he is hated (John 15:18-19).

Christians are not made immune from suffering by their faith, in fact, as they are grafted on to the rootstock of Abraham (Romans 11:17), they can expect much the same persecution meted out to his chosen people of the flesh.

So how can this ever be joy?

Joy is not a sudden rush of pleasure but a steady stream of delight that comes from hopeful assurance.  This does not come from within a man or woman, but from without and that is the Holy Spirit.  It is both evidence of salvation and the product of grace:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God –  not by works, so that no one can boast.  (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Paul speaks of living by the Spirit and that: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22) Note that joy as part of this package, the fruit, that which is manifested in any regenerated, is a combination of all these qualities.  This is happy state but it is not a state of happiness.

Happiness once meant the state of good fortune, so in John Dryden’s poem:

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Happiness is not an emotion but effectively a state of grace; however, the modern meaning of happiness is state of pleasure.  For many then, happiness is a response to the world when things go well…when one is pleased!  In contrast, joy is the knowledge of eternal hope.  One is dependent on the circumstances of mortal life, the other derives from the gift of immortal life. Happiness is temporal and temporary, joy divine and everlasting.

Therefore, with this understanding one may see joy is not dependent on, or related to, the circumstances of this world.  So, to return to the head quotation, what first seems nonsensical, simply is counter-intuitive…especially when the quotation is given if full:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  (James 1:2-4)

Nothing is lacking through Christ – joy comes from knowing Jesus:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.  (1 Peter 1:3-9)

And joy sustains the follower of Christ, through the power of the Spirit of God.  Jesus reassures his bewildered disciples in the Upper Room, just prior to his walk to Gethsemane:

…now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.  In that day, you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.  (John 16:22-24)

Joy sustains Christ himself when facing suffering:

For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:2)

Suffering is necessarily the lot of mortal life, God decreed it so to Adam and Eve and all creation, as the consequence of Adam’s sin.  But in experiencing joy, there is a foretaste of the redeemed world.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.  (2 Corinthians 1:21-22)

It is by the fruit of the Spirit that those in Christ endure and overcome, always rejoicing.