How to Choose Joy When Life is Crashing in on You

C.S. Lewis said, “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.” Too often, however, joy is missing from our lives. When we look to Scripture, we see examples of early Christians thriving even amid hardship and persecution. How do we recapture that deep and stubborn joy? In this excerpt from I Choose Joy, pastor and author Chip Ingram takes us to God’s Word, helping us shift away from the temporal to fix our eyes on our eternal hope. It’s a joy to welcome Chip to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Chip Ingram

When we got the news that my wife, Theresa, had cancer, we cried together on the couch.

“Some things in life matter very much and some don’t matter much at all, and when you face life-threatening situations, the difference becomes crystal clear. “

There were so many things going on in our lives at that time—contracts, appointments, engagements, and countless other demands. When I talked and prayed with the elders, we came up with a plan: I’d be there for weekend services and a few other responsibilities, but otherwise, I needed to be available for my wife.

Everything that seemed so important the previous week suddenly seemed almost irrelevant.

Things like remodeling the kitchen, my left knee hurting, staff hires to be made, how our retirement account was doing . . . all became trivial. It’s amazing how we can fill our hearts and minds with things that matter to us when all is well—whether our weekend plans will work out, getting the latest phone upgrade—only to discover how little those things matter when life is on the line.

The wisest man in the world was right when he wrote that there is more wisdom in “the house of mourning” than in “the house of pleasure” (Eccl. 7:4).

Some things in life matter very much and some don’t matter much at all, and when you face life-threatening situations, the difference becomes crystal clear. 

So, how do you choose joy when life is crashing in on you?

How do you stay grounded in your purpose when it looks like your purpose on earth might come to an end?

How do you live in confidence when you wonder whether you or a loved one will live or die?

I’d suggest that the answer is very simple. That’s not to say it’s easy. It isn’t. But it’s simple and profound: have an eternal perspective.

And that perspective is rooted in one word: hope. 

Hope is the oxygen of the soul. You can go without food for several days and water for about three, but if you go without hope for very long, you die.

“…if we anchor our soul in eternity and cling to God’s promises, we receive the grace and perseverance to keep going.”

This life is not all there is. If we think it is, we eventually lose hope, but if we anchor our soul in eternity and cling to God’s promises, we receive the grace and perseverance to keep going.

So, how do you develop the eternal perspective that gives you the kind of hope that allows you to go through anything without giving up, getting inwardly focused, becoming a victim, or blaming God or others? When life is crashing in and you don’t know how things are going to turn out, how can you become the kind of person who makes people wonder: What do they have that I don’t have?

In other words, when life seems hopeless, how do you live with hope?

We use the word hope to mean a lot of things. We hope the weather will be nice this weekend, hope our team wins the big game, hope we get that good job, and hope our kids grow up to be strong believers who make wise choices. But the outcome is not guaranteed in any of those scenarios, is it?

When we use hope in that sense, we’re really talking about desires and wishes. We don’t know if things are going to work out, but we “hope” they do. There’s nothing wrong with wishful thinking and “hoping” our desires come to pass, but we need to understand that when the Bible talks about hope, it isn’t referring to things that may or may not work out. Biblical hope is a certainty, a guarantee of something yet unseen.

“Biblical hope is about looking forward not to possibilities, but to certainties.“

When we hope for Christ’s return, eternal life in heaven, and the fulfillment of God’s promises, we aren’t speculating or expressing personal desires. These things are definite and certain. They are on God’s eternal timeline; they just haven’t happened yet. They are coming, but for now we can only anticipate them.

Biblical hope is about looking forward not to possibilities, but to certainties. We can anchor our souls in that kind of hope. Hope based in God’s plans and purposes cannot be shaken. Our perspective on that hope might shift back and forth—that’s why we need to be intentional about choosing our perspectives—but the foundation of our hope never moves.

It is based on God’s character and faithfulness. 

Paul wrote that if there is no resurrection, if we’ve hoped for Christ in this life only, we should be pitied above everyone else (1Cor. 15:19). But because the resurrection is a certain hope, there’s no reason for us to cling to everything in this life as though it’s all we have.

That doesn’t mean we should live with an escapist, pie-in-the-sky mentality.

Suffering is real, and sometimes life is incredibly painful. There’s no getting around that. But we are called to set our minds on things above, not on things on earth (Col. 3:2), and live with a clear view of eternity, even in the midst of our darkest, most excruciating experiences.

Like Paul, we need to understand that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21)

—and, with eager expectation, fix our eyes on the promised hope. 

Chip Ingram is the teaching pastor and CEO of Living on the Edge, an international teaching and discipleship ministry. A pastor for more than thirty years, Chip is the author of many books, including Holy Ambition and The Invisible War. Chip and his wife, Theresa, have four grown children and twelve grandchildren and live in California. 

I Choose Joy isn’t dry theory—it’s a practical, example-filled, Scripture-rich guide to choosing joy when life hurts.

If you need practical tools for thriving no matter your circumstances, I Choose Joy is for you.

{Our humble thanks to Moody Publishers for their partnership in today’s devotional.}