Anyone interested in the UK jazz scene will be aware of the band Ezra Collective, who have burst onto the scene over the past few years with their unique fusion of jazz, afrobeat, calypso, hip-hop, soul and reggae. The name of their debut album ‘You Can’t Steal My Joy’ effectively captures the energy that radiates from their music and stage presence, but also points to the deeper influence of faith on the band and ultimately outlines a crucial aspect of what it means to be a Christian: to live in a state of stable joy.
An occasional overtone, or our fundamental frequency?
The words ‘joy’, ‘joyful’ or ‘rejoice’ appear a whopping 430 times in the Bible, and yet, despite this near-on obsession the biblical writers seemed to have with joy, it can often feel like a will-o-the-wisp for Christians. Something we know we should have, and might feel on occasion in a time of corporate worship or daily devotion, but the reality of life kicks in and soon our joy is stolen away by the struggles and mundanity of the Monday-Saturday plod. And don’t get me started on musicians. As the stresses of paying rent, trying to keep a regular and relevant social media presence in a crowded digital market, and lack of gigs mount, then joy quickly becomes a scarcer commodity than toilet roll during a global pandemic. Additionally, Help Musicians ran a survey in 2023 on performance anxiety, showing that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 70% of musicians struggled with performance anxiety, with the figure now reaching 80%. All this leads us into states of stress, worry and disillusionment. If that is you, you’re not alone. But is there more? Jesus Himself said to his disciples:
Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
Can we truly, in Christ, become people for whom joy is not just an occasional overtone but our fundamental frequency?
I believe the answer is a resounding ‘YES AND AMEN!’
What joy is
Before we find out how we do this, let’s firstly discuss what joy is. There was a time when I would have answered this question with a certain smugness that comes from presenting a suitably provocative argument: ‘oh that’s easy - joy is the opposite of happiness. Happiness is fleeting, fickle, and surface-level; joy is deep-down, meaningful, and lasting.’ Hear me right: I’m all for joy being enduring and meaningful, but the Bible never says anything about joy residing on the opposite of some theological spectrum to happiness. The word used for ‘blessed’ that appears in the Beatitudes ('Blessed are the poor in spirit' etc..) is makarios, which carries the meaning ‘happy’. We could summarize Matthew 5:1-12 by saying ‘happy are those who trust and follow God’s rule and reign in His Kingdom on Earth’. God desires our happiness. Not, perhaps, in the way that the world might define happiness: not through fame, or playing for a prestigious ensemble, or buying the latest Apple watch, but rather through relationship with God and obedience to Him. Let’s not throw happiness out with the bathwater as though it is a worldly version of joy that we should avoid talking about lest we fall into the trap of frivolous pursuits. God desires our happiness. He is the key to our happiness, as we practise, buy coffee, fill in competition applications, organise rehearsals, visit family, and go on stage.
Godly happiness is good. However, whereas we might define happiness as an emotion, joy does not stop there. Joy is a by-product of the Spirit of God living inside us (Galatians 5:22). Joy is the inner condition of the heart of Jesus Himself, and as He comes to live in us, He shares that joy with us so that our joy will be not in part but in full and in abundance. Theologian Dallas Willard writes:
Undoubtedly God is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of God's love and generosity is inseparable from God's infinite joy.’[1]
If joy is not simply a feeling that comes and goes like a single well-worked improvised phrase, but instead is the condition of the heart of God, shared with us, we see how joy can transcend circumstance and current emotion. Joy becomes the continuous groove on top of which any manner of phrases can be played. The writer of Hebrews points out that it was:
for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross...
Joy, at the heart of Jesus, was His strength both in the good times and in the hardest time of all. That is the same joy that He promises in scripture to impart to all who live in Him.
As musicians, that means seeking to welcome Jesus into our hearts at all times: a prayer before going on stage, before beginning a warm-up exercise, while writing an essay (or a blog post…), filling out taxes, buying groceries, and giving your trumpet a bath.
Practising joy
And while joy is in one sense a bi-product of being in Christ, there is, alongside this, a clear responsibility for us to pursue joy, even practise it. Joy is not an optional thing as a follower of Jesus. It’s not part of the pick-n-mix of the spiritual fruits that we can opt in or out of. Author Rick Howe goes as far to to say that we have a moral obligation to pursue joy because it is the Father’s will for us.[2] Paul exhorts us:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice!
Notice what Paul does not say: 'Rejoice when you’re feeling elated. Rejoice when you’ve nailed your big gig and you can just chill out for a while with that sunny denouement feelling.' No, Paul commands the practice of joy. Always.
Have you thought about what that means? Paul’s command to practise rejoicing is a helpful one because it helps us to see that joy is not something we only feel when we happen to feel it: not only when we perform Mahler 3 with two hundred other musicians in the Royal Albert Hall or have our composition brought to life by a professional ensemble, but also when we don’t have any gigs in the diary and we are experiencing writer’s block. Rather this command means choosing to rejoice, always. To rejoice first thing in the morning when you’ve had a late gig the night before and all you want to do is go back to sleep. Rejoice in the work and the pay the Lord has given to you when 6th April hits and it's time to do your tax return for the year. Rejoice when you’re unsure how you’re going to pay the rent this January because the work has dried up and you’ve had to pay for that unexpected instrument repair. Rejoice that God is provider, thank Him for how He has provided before and stand on the promise that He will provide in the future. Rejoice during a big week of rehearsing, when going for drinks with colleagues, when you’re feeling on top of your game, and when you feel like your instrument is just not behaving the way it should.
As musicians we know, perhaps more than most, the purpose of practising fundamentals over and over, because it is this habit that ultimately enables our fluency on the instrument. So too with the practice of rejoicing. Richard Foster, author of The Celebration of Discipline, writes:
If we think we will only have joy by praying and singing psalms we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them we will be joyful, that is, full of joy.[3]
It is so easy in the music industry to get caught in to the trap of focusing on the negatives, and while it is also important that we are engaging with the reality of the sufferings in life, alongside this we must curate for ourselves a constant record of good things, big and small in our lives, from specifically answered prayers to simple daily essentials.
Before I begin to practise, I always thank God for the gift of music, my instrument, all the privileges that have enabled me to get to this point. I thank Him also for His presence with and in me as I work. I ask Him to help me work hard as if for Him (Colossians 3:23) and not any human, and I thank Him that my work, when done for God, is never in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).
Over the past couple of years Jesus has led me into joy in the most likely and unlikely of circumstances. As I perform with my band Rev21, all of whom are followers of Jesus, we pray before each rehearsal and gig which centres my heart to go into the imminent sets from a place of joy. In my week I teach primary school children music lessons and I have been in the habit of asking the Holy Spirit each day to be present in the classroom where I teach. As I acknowledge and rejoice in the presence of God as I am teaching, the smallest activity like dancing around with multi-coloured scarves to ‘Hungarian March’ with my reception class can be transformed by the joy of the Lord into a space of communion with Jesus.
Abiding in Jesus's love
So joy is a gift, and a consequence of abiding in Jesus’s love. A gift that flows from the generous presence of the Lord himself. But we also have a responsibility to be proactive in rejoicing. We choose to rejoice when we set foot on the stage and say to God, ‘I choose to make this performance worship. Whatever the music I choose to offer it up to You. I choose to acknowledge Your presence here in this space and celebrate the gifts that You have given to me and the people I am performing alongside, some or all of whom may not even know they are from You’. As the habit of rejoicing becomes the motif in the symphony of our lives, we learn to acknowledge God’s presence in all things. Then the practice room, the concert hall, the jazz club and the lecture hall each becomes a holy space where Jesus’s joy becomes our joy, and no one can steal that away.
As the habit of rejoicing becomes the motif in the symphony of our lives, we learn to acknowledge God’s presence in all things.
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[1] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God, 62
[2] Rick Howe, Joy and the Problem of Evil.
