Doing good works without joy

[anon64350612]

It can take a long time to get to the “joy” stage. And that stage may not even look like joy on the outside. So I think we should not try to gauge others’ levels of joy, and we should not always think they have to have joy to do good works. Those who sow in tears will reap with joy. That reaping could take years to arrive. Just my two cents.

 

[Edward_H]

Great topic.

Our response to God should always strive to be “sunny submission”. Happy sacrifice.

 

[JamalChristophr]

Jesus does not need us to be joyful when we do good works. It comes from our will, not our emotions. Joyfulness is great, but don’t get hung up on it.

Maybe the good Samaritan was having a crummy day when he was passing by on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. He had compassion on the man beaten by bandits and left for dead; he stopped and did the loving thing. We have no idea if he was joyful about it or not.

 

[Greenfields]

Sometimes it helps to be one of those wretched souls,if ever you are given the opportunity .

 

[goodcatholic]

As a wife, there are times when I do not like my husband. As a mother, there are times when I do not like my children. As an employee, there are times when I do not like my boss. I continue to love and serve them out of duty.

Thanks for your honest answer. Life is so often like this though.

Eg someone who is disabled can’t physically do some of the volunteer work. So obviously that’s ok.

Eg someone who is very good at say singing and has time to join the choir and doesn’t have any other reasons for not joining and the choir needs people YET deliberately refuses to help. Surely that’s not ok.

So the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle?

Sorry I’m still brainstorming.

No you are doing well. I tend to brainstorm as I start these kinds of threads. I just think it is worth asking “what if ?” questions

It can take a long time to get to the “joy” stage. And that stage may not even look like joy on the outside. So I think we should not try to gauge others’ levels of joy, and we should not always think they have to have joy to do good works. Those who sow in tears will reap with joy. That reaping could take years to arrive

That is a classy answer in my opinion. You go to the top of the class!

Our response to God should always strive to be “sunny submission”. Happy sacrifice.

Nicely put. Easier said than done though.

Maybe the good Samaritan was having a crummy day when he was passing by on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem.

I think it is useful for us to imagine the stories in the Gospel like this. They were just human being after all. Action speak louder than words?

Sometimes it helps to be one of those wretched souls,if ever you are given the opportunity .

Just hoping I didn’t offend you there. Sorry if I did. I was trying to show how patronising we can be even when we do good works.

When we start worrying about our reputation, we can easily get sidetracked. Put a check on that, and I think you are just doing great.

I need to remind myself of this every day.

 

[goodcatholic]

Is it better to be doing no good works at all, than to have an attitude like this?

OK. I’m going to try and answer my own question here. Thanks for your responses by the way. it really helped me think about this one more deeply.
I’m going to take a stronger view here though I might be dissuaded later into changing it.

Faith and works. The key to our salvation. If our faith is strong enough, good works will automatically follow. If our faith is strong enough, we will do good works with joy.
I imagine being elderly and some young person cleaning my house for me as a volunteer. If that person is grumpy and in a hurry and not interested in talking to me, I will feel disappointed. How much more comforting if that young person is friendly and doesn’t act like any task is a huge burden!
The bar is set high but that is typical of the gospel message. We should all be striving to be saints, shouldnt we? Even we feel desperately inadequate and only achieve poor to average results.
My father used to volunteer for a charity and visit hospitals. He was cheerful and actually enjoyed the work. There was no stoic endurance, no “look at how hard I’m working for the poor” attitude. He genuinely enjoyed helping those on the margins. He did occasionally mention that there were some unsavoury characters who tried to take advantage of charities and pretend to be poor. But that was the exception to the rule. I think he had a natural affinity with the poor, having lived though hard times in the Great Depression.
In conclusion I admit there should be at first perhaps an attitude of “just do it” or “fake it until you make it”. But what we are ultimately aiming for is joy in good works. Because that indicates the level of faith we have. And if we are just doing good works to earn favour with God, I think we need to reassess whether our faith is deep enough.