I've been thinking a lot lately about a verse in the Book of Mormon, "...men are, that they might have joy."
I have been pondering, in an increasingly troubled world, about the concept of "joy" and how joy is achieved. Webster's Dictionary defines joy as "1. The emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good. 2. A state of happiness or felicity: bliss," and happiness is defined as "a state of well-being." The two words — happiness and joy — are somewhat synonymous.
On the LDS.org Web site our understanding of joy is broadened when it is described as "a condition of great happiness that comes from righteous living." The Prophet Joseph Smith expanded upon this, defining happiness as "the object and design of our existence; and (it) will be the end thereof if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God."
President Marion J. Romney in describing the way to achieve and deepen "joy" explained, "Every person's spirit is ill when it is burdened with sin. ... When one receives forgiveness, his spirit is healed and he has peace of conscience. Thereafter his happiness [and joy] increases as he strives to perfect himself by inculcating into his life the attributes of charity ... kindness, long suffering, humility, and love ... the pure love of Christ. This is the path to true happiness."
We learn that we cannot find joy in this life if we are burdened by sin. However, when we repent and reform that burden is lifted. As we engage in righteous living our spirits will be buoyed up and we will find peace of conscience and feel true joy.
As crazy as it might sound, I saw something several years ago that visually illustrated for me the principle of joy. It is still vividly stamped on my memory — a scene I observed in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswold in England as a little boy was puddle-jumping.
The Cotswolds are graced by lovely little English villages peppered with quaint stores, thatched cottages and charming gardens nestled behind stout, low, stone walls.
Bourton-on-the-Water's main street follows beside a brook that flows through the village crisscrossed by several foot bridges. The day we were there it rained, as it usually does, and the dips and depressions in the footpath beside the brook brimmed with water.
As I cut onto the footpath I happened to fall in behind a spunky 3-year-old, his hand held fast by his grandmother. Undaunted, he managed, with mighty leaps, to bounce and pound into every puddle that came into or near his path. After one or two puddles his grandmother let go and within seconds he was happily soaking wet. Grinning from ear to ear, he frequently looked his grandmother's way before his next bounding splash.
He seemed determined not only to soak himself but to spray every last drop of water out of every puddle he jumped. It was the look on his face that captured me. It was pure, unmitigated joy, delight, bliss, elation — free from worry, unburdened by sin, pleased with a job well done! I suspect this is the feeling that comes when we remove sin from our lives and replace it with peace of conscience opening the way to true joy.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where many individuals are spinning further and further out of control. Deceived by Satan, they careen from worldly pleasure to worldly pleasure, from sin to sin, finding brief, transient exhilaration in sensual rushes, only to be left unfulfilled in their unrequited quest to experience joy. They err because they fail to understand as Alma in he Book of Mormon counseled his wayward son Corianton, "Wickedness never was happiness."
While their hedonistic rush to sorrow, and sometimes to destruction, will never satisfy their longing, as members of Christ's church, we understand that it is possible to know joy in this life. It will not come from indulging in sensual pleasures and sin. It will only come as we strive to live righteously, to obey the principles of the gospel, and to implant in our lives the attributes of kindness, long suffering, humility and charity — to feel and to share the pure love of Christ.