Happiness of Joy

I read through a friend's blog post recently that contrasts the differences of happiness and joy. Travis writes: "A good life can't rely on places, jobs, or people for hope and confidence... that would be like relying on scratch lotto tickets for a stable financial future".

Happiness is circumstantial. Circumstances that are unpleasant are most often out of our control. Joy is more of a foundation. A foundation that gauges our reactions and satisfactions. A foundation based of our faith and beliefs. Joy is the hope of knowing an outcome to an unpleasant circumstance.

Joy based on the wrong beliefs is not joyful, even under happy circumstances. Read Ecclesiastes 2:1-17. Uncountable happy circumstances only resulted in an astounding grievous response.

Now read Nehemiah 8:10. Mainly the part about "do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength". This is a command, do not! Do not grieve, why not? Because the LORD is the foundation of our joy, and the foundation is secure. This is written in Nehemiah in a time that the Israelites had been in captivity. Read that as an unpleasant circumstance. Even in times of distress one can have joy if their foundation is secure.


In conclusion I am extremely excited for California. Let's hope for some warm weather!
And because I did not post this before (December 30, 2010, a few minutes before 7am local): Earthquakes make a good alarm clock.

Earthquake

This morning around 5:30am I was awakened by my apartment shaking. Well more like swaying side to side while I laid in my bed. The thought of an earthquake crossed my mind, however, the apartment wasn't majorly shaking, and I dismissed it with the idea "What are they doing in the apartment above me?". This morning I found out it was an earthquake (epicenter at the lower Illinois/Indiana border line with a magnitude of 5.2). To put this into perspective, I've mapped out the approximate location of the epicenter and where I am currently located, nearly 400 miles away.

Here's the link to a new article about the quake for further reading: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/illinois.earthquake/ or

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008qza6.php#details

Classes are almost over, but I still have a ton of stuff to get finished before my bike trip! Let's get it on.