Day 33: Tracing JOY to its Source

During the summer months, I became more and more convicted as to WHAT gives me joy. The sources of joy I typically describe in my "100 Days of Joy" experiment are the gifts, not the Giver. They are sweet gifts, often quiet and unexpected and certainly worth celebrating, but real joy will elude anyone whose only sources are temporal things/circumstances/feelings. Am I confusing joy with happiness?

This week, I began reading John Piper's book Desiring God. This excellent book (which will probably take me months to read) has even further revealed the emptiness of pursing joy from secondary sources and has reminded me to pursue the true Source of joy. Piper says,

Test yourself here. There are many professing Christians who delight in God's gifts, but not God. Would you want to go to heaven if God were not there, only His gifts?

Piper reminds us that the gift of conversion results in us, like the man in the parable of the hidden treasure, joyfully selling everything we have to buy the only treasure we really desire. That treasure is fellowship with God; the selling is not necessarily literally getting rid of our possessions but prizing fellowship with God above all other blessings.

Do I find such perfect joy in God that I don't need anything else? Not family, not health, not material possessions or success or the opinion of others? I certainly believe in God and aim every day to live a life that glorifies Him. But can I honestly say that my joy is fulfilled in knowing God? 

I am convicted. I will continue to faithfully celebrate God's blessings every day with my "100 Days" entries. But, at the same time, I will trace these little joys to their source by praying that God performs a miracle in my heart. I want a joy that is complete in simply knowing God.