There’s an old Jewish story that when Lucifer was cast out of heaven he was asked in hell what he missed most out of his former life, and replied, ‘I miss most the sound of the trumpets in the morning.’ Turning our backs on God may seem to bring all sorts of benefits, but joy is not one of them. One of the great promises Jesus made was that those who embrace his teachings would find joy; ‘I have told you these things,’ he said, ‘that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.’
Robert Louis Stevenson said, ‘When a joyful person comes into a room it is as if another candle had been lighted.’ Joy enriches those who receive it, without making poorer those who give it. None are so rich that they can get along without it, and none are so poor but that they can be made rich by it.