Are you a surfer or a sailor? I’m not talking about your relationship to aquatic activities. I’m talking about your relationship to the experience of joy. Surfers experience waves of joy. Sailors experience oceans of joy. Surfers have to work and work to catch a wave that takes them high, but crashes in a moment. Sailors simply shove off into deep waters, and can stay out there as long as they want. Waves are good, but oceans are better! Here are three keys to experiencing joy as an ocean, rather than as just a wave.
1. Refuse to set your joy on shallow things
The difference between a wave and an ocean is that one is shallow and the other is deep. Waves look deep at their apex, but the depth of a wave is temporary. Setting your joy upon temporary circumstances is equivalent to setting yourself up for a temporary experience of joy.
But how do I set my joy on anything? Can I really influence my experience of joy?
Yes, of course you can! Setting your joy is about making the decision to rejoice. Rejoicing is a decision; in rejoicing, you are not a mere object acted upon, but a subject that acts with intentionality. The question is, what do you rejoice in?
The location of this decision is your heart and mind; the decision to rejoice begins with self-talk.
If you are saying in your heart, if only I had this . . . if only I had that . . . you are engaging in a shallow form of self-talk, and you are failing to rejoice in what you have. You are looking for waves and ignoring the ocean.
2. Set your joy on deep things
You’ve got to begin to rejoice in deep things . . . Rejoice in who you are in the depth of your being. Do you know who you are? If you did, you wouldn’t be so down about temporary circumstances because they have no power to influence your identity!
- You are loved
- You are accepted
- You are gifted
- You are unique
These are all deep things that must become the subject of your self-talk if you are to leave the shallow waters of temporary joy.
The mark of many great men and women throughout history is that they knew who they were before they ever accomplished anything great. They didn’t need the world to tell them they were great; they gave themselves to the world because they knew the greatness in their hearts.
3. Live this out relationally
The worst part of shallow self-talk is that it cuts us off from the people around us who long to connect with us intimately. Shallow self-talk isolates us in ourselves. Life becomes a quest to solve the riddle of our own existence. The great questions are how do I overcome . . . ? how do I get . . . ? and how do I keep . . . ?
The real questions are much more important. Who do I see? How can I love? How can I heal?
Taking the time to allow your heart (or maybe even command your heart) to take delight in the ones that you love is the work that will take you out into the depths of an ocean of joy. There are many waves there, but the waves never crash. Beneath the waves are the depths of the ocean, depths that you can spend the rest of your life delving into.
Intimacy is the great mystery that science and technology have no insight into. We can study only its surface, but we can live in its depths.
