Why I Lack Joy

A Franciscan friar, and I sat, facing one another in the midst of the monastery’s lawn.

The topic: my lack of joy.

He counseled, “You lack poverty.”
I was perplexed.
“You mean I have to be poor to be happy.”

He explained how joy and poverty were related.
I failed to understand the connection.

After concluding our session, he mentioned that dinner was “self-serve.”
Meaning: dig through the kitchen refrigerators and eat what you can find.
I foraged through the refrigerators finding multiple containers of unidentifiable substances the monks refer to as “food.”
Almost surrendering the hunt, I discovered a Tupperware bowl containing four toothpicks, each with skewered salami slices, cheese cubes, a shriveled tomato, and a dehydrated olive.
Resembling food, I loaded the skewered delectables onto my plate and made my way to the refectory (monk dining hall).

I hate olives.

I prayed over the food—for many reasons.
My intent was to eat the salami, the cheese cubes, perhaps the tomatoes—but bury the olives deep in the kitchens’ garbage can.

As I began to eat, a thought convicted me:

If I was a starving beggar, I would cherish and devour those despised olives.

A second thought followed:

In my poverty I would be incapable of purchasing food.
Any food would be a welcome gift.
I would thank God for those olives.

A final thought emerged:

I lack joy when I focus on the “more” I do not possess, rather than on the gift that has been given to me.

Spiritual poverty is recognizing that even the little we have is a gift, and to be utterly grateful to God for that gift.

Whether the context for your struggle is subscribers on social, money in the bank, your house, your wife, your children—this principle can be applied to every aspect of life.

We have joy when we believe that we are truly poor.
Spiritual poverty fosters gratitude, gratitude births joy.

From the depth of my poverty, I thank God for those things He has already given, without desiring the more that He has not offered.
The sadness dissipates and I become a man of joy…

And I ate the olives.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.