What’s In A Name?, Pt 22: Simchat Gili
Psalm 43:3-4 3Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. 4Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight [[El Simchat Gili]. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. 5Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Note: This will be the last of the series of looking at the names of God as clues to His nature and character. All of them have been derived from the Tanakh (Old Testament), but many others are to be found in the New Testament, primarily centered around Jesus. I encourage the reader to investigate those names himself.
I deliberately left YHWH El Simchat Gili for this last posting because Simchat Gili means God of exceeding joy and I cannot think of a better way to close out this series. But before considering Simchat Gili it occurs to me to wonder about the difference between joy and happiness. Many people consider them the same or at least confuse them. In John 15:9-11 Jesus says
9“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
If joy in v11 means happiness (situational) then the whole passage has no meaning. But if the word means joy (attitudinal) then the passage makes perfect sense. Joy is an attitude and a behavior while happiness is an expression of an internal feeling. If this is true, then how is it that God can be our joy and delight? Our Simchat Gili?
I said earlier that people confuse joy with happiness. This is easy to do actually because of the way happiness works. Happiness comes from things; and things can be gotten. Sex, money, fame, power, acceptance, and comfort can be pursued. If asked why they are happy they will usually refer to something on this list or something similar. But since happiness is based on things it is also dependent on them; when you have the things, you’re happy, when you don’t, you’re not.
But joy is something entirely different. The writer of Psalm 43 was having trouble with deceitful and ungrateful people of his own nation, so much so that he had begun to question God. Sound familiar to you? But what did he do? First, he called on God for help. Second, he went to synagogue (church), to worship God. He knew circumstances don’t bring joy, but the person of God does. Third, he was aware the joy found in God was greater than any human counterfeit. Now, someone might say, “I love God,” or “I don’t see that God cares about my struggles.” These are valid concerns, but they arise out of a misunderstanding of the greatest commandment. When asked, Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. “Heart, soul, mind, and strength is a way of saying the totality of a person: the decision making, the conscious will, approach to life, even the effects of past choices in these areas. In the John 15 verse Jesus says we must keep his commandments to remain in his love. Does this mean he is a sort of benevolent dictator that requires obedience? Of course not. But he is saying that deciding to follow the greatest commandment should not be a flippant, off the cuff decision. So, when the psalmist wrote those words, he was showing his determination to follow his LORD God with every ounce of his being.
We think joy is found in things: that’s happiness. The psalmist knew joy is found in a person and Jesus amplifies that by showing that joy is found in living in a way that pleases the person. Did Jesus mean that joy is found in following rules and regulations? No, but living a life worthy of the believer does bring the believer into joy.
How do we do that, one might ask. Recently, I came across this acrostic J-O-Y-F-U-L which helps explain how to find joy in one’s life.
J Jettison regrets about my past.
Remember that God has brought every one of us to this point of our lives by using the successes and failures in our lives to shape us in some way. Maybe He is using our struggles to wake us up about our need for His Son. Or if we are already a believer, maybe He is finetuning us for work in the Kingdom. In any case we can’t allow those things to burden us; we can’t change them, only learn from them.
O Omit worries about my future.
The future is not here yet. All we have is the present. We can worry about things which have not yet happened, or we can live our lives in such a way that pleases Jesus. We can lead a fulfilled life following Him and obeying His commandments.
Y Yield myself to God’s purpose.
To yield is simply to present something to someone to use. Whenever we allow our bodies to be used for something, we are yielding. God wants you to yield, or present, your bodies to Him. It is a decision to relinquish control of your life to Him as Lord. You will be so grateful you did, because it is in that place that you will enjoy life to the full.
F Focus on what is good.
In the deepest part of our souls, I think most of us understand what is right and good and what is not. The question is what definition we are using. If we follow God’s commands we cannot go wrong, so it benefits us to read the Word, know what God is saying, and live in a way that pleases Him.
U Use my life to help others.
The second greatest commandment is to love my neighbor as myself. This is the origin of the ‘Golden Rule’ which appears nowhere in Scripture. Many times in my life I have need a ‘leg up’. I suppose it is the same for you. Let’s remember others do too.
L Learn to be content.
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
(prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971)
The J-O-Y-F-U-L acrostic and much of the discussion comes from MORE – The Lord is My Joy – El Simchath Gili | Faith Fellowship (ffworship.com)