How often do we equate joy, the feeling of happiness and peaceful contentment, with material things or how well things are presently going in our lives? We are all prone to complain and bellyache more about what we do not have or what has gone wrong or what is going wrong rather than being joyful and appreciative of what we have. If we are honest, with the tendency to look at what others have that we don’t, we can easily find ourselves feeling angry about life. Our anger usually spews out to those closest to us.

Growing up, my family did not have much in the way of material things. Some of my friend’s parents were much more financially affluent than mine, and when I would spend time with those friends, it was a totally different world than the one I lived in. In my world, there was no after school or after dinner snacks, no Captain Crunch or Frootloops. There was no going to the movies, or buying toys at the mall, or even ordering pizza to be delivered while you were watching a video on your VCR. (VCRs were primitive machines that were used to watch VHS tapes, they have been mostly replaced by DVD players and streaming platforms.)

On the occasion when I was asked to spend the day or stay the night with my friends, my attitude, when I returned home was not good, frankly, it stunk! I felt slighted and angry because I didn’t have the things and the lifestyle that my friends enjoyed. I just knew that if I had what they had, if my life’s circumstances were better, I would always be joyful. But real joy, contentment, can’t be bought or sold.

Real joy can’t be found in material things any more than real joy can be taken away by the loss of material things.

Recorded in the minor prophetic book of Habakkuk is the correct outlook concerning real joy.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
    nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
 God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the deer’s;
    he makes me tread on my high places.  Habakkuk 3:17-19

There is no true lasting joy found in material wealth, health, or possessions, for all these things pass away. You can have real joy, and an abundance of it, even if you have very little of the world’s wealth and opportunities.
The key to real joy is focusing on what has been done for you by Jesus Christ.

 Psalms 4: 7–8 “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”