Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 305 – Joy, Take 2

There are some lessons I need to learn more than once, so I would like to return to Joy. 

I once wrote that joy comes from knowing God is with you. I am now learning that joy grows when you begin to work with Him.

Holy Week is the clearest example of this. Out of the deepest suffering comes the greatest joy. While nothing compares to the suffering of Jesus, your enterprise is full of challenges from which joy can emerge, a faint but real echo of the resurrection.

Jesus endured the cross “for the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). Joy did not remove the suffering; it reframed it. It gave it purpose.

I’m not talking happiness. Not the fleeting lift that comes with a good quarter, a signed contract, or a problem resolved. Those are good gifts, but they are not joy.

Joy is deep.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” — Philippians 4:4

Paul writes this not from a place of comfort, but from prison. Joy is not tied to circumstance, it is anchored in the Lord.

In business, it is easy to let our feelings rise and fall with performance. A deal closes, and we are up. A client walks, and we are down. We live on a rollercoaster, tethered to outcomes we never fully control.  Joy invites us off that ride.

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.” — Nehemiah 8:10

Nehemiah writes this where he and his companions had returned from exile to Jerusalem. But this was not a grand return to a thriving city. It was a return to physical ruins and cultural loss that needed rebuilding, surrounded by enemies.

Yet Nehemiah found deep Joy not in results, strategy or reputation, but “in the Lord.”

This is a profound shift. It means that your strength as a leader, as a steward of people and resources, does not come from how things are going, but from who God is.

Joy in this world comes only from co-labouring with Jesus, knowing that the work before you is not yours alone. That He is in it with you, shaping not just the outcome, but you.

Joy is found in remembering that you are not alone. That your work, seemingly ordinary, is caught up in a larger story, a story you are fashioning with Jesus. Faithfulness, not outcomes, is the true measure.

Joy is a steady companion for those who work closely with God.

Take 2, then, is this: do not wait for your circumstances to improve before you choose Joy. Choose to work more deeply in the One who does not change. Joy will follow.

Prayer

Lord God, my Saviour, Draw me into deeper partnership with You in the work before me. Let Your joy be my strength.

Amen