The Secret to Joy in 2024

Removing the enemy of comparison from your life

Happy. New. Year.

These three words are the standard greeting this time of year. People gather every New Year’s Eve, projecting an air of joy and exuberance, and then, as the clock strikes midnight, shout in unison, “Happy New Year!!”

Everyone wants to be happy.

Our team at Mobilize the Church (formerly Groundswell and 1000 Churches, if you missed our last article) is praying for God’s blessing on your life and ministry, and we want to share a secret to finding happiness and joy in 2024.

We also want to help you remove the word “comparison” from your life.

• Comparison will sabotage your happiness, stunt your generosity, and shortcut your ability to invest in others.

• Comparison will cause you to focus on accumulating more and more in an effort to compete against those around you.

• Comparison will need to be faced personally as a pastor or leader and corporately as a society and church.

Yes, the great enemy of joy is comparison.  

A Tale of Two Women

Our family returned from Christmas vacation last week and enjoyed our time away for the holidays. Christmas is a season marked by joy.

Joy to the world. O come all ye faithful, joyful, and triumphant. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel. The angel told the shepherds, “Behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

In December, I preached at our local church on the secret to finding joy and used the relationship of Mary and Elizabeth as a case study. These two women were close relatives, and their joy could have easily been sabotaged by comparison.

The angel Gabriel told Mary in Luke 1:36, “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.”

Aunt Lizzy was going to have a baby!

Elizabeth struggled her entire life trying to have a baby. She endured the shame of being barren, the sadness of not raising a child, and the brunt of local gossip.

Finally, in her old age, she found out she was pregnant. Not only was she pregnant, but an angel told Zechariah their son would be “great in the sight of God,” filled with the Holy Spirit, and would prepare the way for the Messiah.

Their son would be John the Baptist!

Elizabeth waited six months, and then, just as she prepared to tell the world the good news, there was a knock at the door.

It was Mary!

Mary had even greater news than Elizabeth, and before Elizabeth had a chance to share her good news with the world, everything shifted to Mary.

• Mary’s child would be the Messiah.

• Mary’s child would be the Savior of the world.

• Mary would be talked about for generations.

Elizabeth would be a somewhat forgotten player in a broader Christmas narrative, and in that moment, Elizabeth faced the enemy of joy.

At that moment, her “Happy New Year” was threatened.

She stared the enemy right in its eyes. Would she let comparison rob her of her joy? Would she resent the fact that Mary’s news was even better than her own? The same choice faces us in 2024.

Will you enjoy that end-of-the-year bonus, even when other staff members receive a larger bonus than you? Are you happy in your marriage, even after hanging out with that couple whose relationship seems more loving? Will you have a happy new year that first Sunday back to church, when the church's attendance down the street is always larger?

Comparison is the enemy of joy… and it’s killing us.

Comparison is Killing Us

I’ve become increasingly unsettled with technology these days, specifically social media. As much as I want to believe it can be a force for good to unify people and encourage one another, it seems to do the exact opposite.

It fosters competition, envy, and comparison.

Numerous times over the years, I’ve had my joy depleted after visiting Facebook, Instagram, or any number of social media sites.

Why is our nation growing increasingly depressed and anxious? Why is the suicide rate skyrocketing? What is happening in our current culture that is robbing people of their joy?

The leading cause appears to be comparison and entitlement, and the delivery system is social media.

We’ve seen this coming for a while now, but adolescents are in what can only be described as a mental health crisis. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has described adolescent mental health as the crisis of our time.

Teen depression has doubled between 2011 and 2021, and 1 out of 3 teen girls in the US has seriously considered suicide. Emergency room admissions for self-harm have nearly doubled for 15- to 19-year-old girls and have quadrupled for 10- to 14-year-old girls. The suicide rate for these age groups has more than doubled as well.

Notice the graph below and the year when things began to spike…2009.

Figure 1- Rate of emergency room admissions for self-harm behaviors among U.S. girls and young women by age group. Source: CDC

2009 was the linchpin moment for the rise in depression and self-harm, and it was around that time when smartphones and social media began to gain steam.

Despite dozens of people trying to explain away this correlation, the evidence is clear. Social media is having devastating effects on society. There is a direct correlation between the amount of time people spend on social media and their depression.

According to Gallup’s data, 76.7% of youth spend more than two hours daily on social media, and over half spend about five hours daily.

The above conclusion was researched and articulated in a recent article by Dr. Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State and a psychologist, where she argued that social media, comparison, and depression go hand in hand.

The more hours a day a person spends on social media, the more likely they are to be depressed.

But this is bigger than social media.

The Secret to Joy

When Elizabeth answered the door that day, Mary’s incredible news could have provoked a reaction of envy or sadness. Elizabeth could have played the comparison game. But she didn’t.

Instead, when Elizabeth heard the news that Mary was pregnant, she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” and then explained how her baby leaped for joy.

No doubt Elizabeth then shared her news with Mary, and I imagine there was hugging and crying and laughing! What was her secret? How did Elizabeth overcome the great enemy of joy?

She discovered the secret antidote to comparison…gratitude.

Elizabeth remained grateful.

I’ve heard it said, “Gratitude is the source of all Christian virtue.” Perhaps because the source of all gratitude is grace, and Elizabeth didn’t deserve God’s grace. She had lived her entire life without a child. She had made peace with it, but God showered her with his grace.

Grace is undeserved.

Elizabeth was humbled by his grace and remained humbled even after Mary’s news. There was no room for comparison. God had been so good to her.

Joy does not depend on our situation. It depends on our perspective.

Joy is not dependent on what a person accomplishes, how much they make, how successful they are, how many friends they have, what they do on the weekend, or how perfect their family.

Joy is not dependent on that.

It’s depended on humility and a sense of gratitude for God’s grace. The Bible says in Psalm 16 that in the Lord’s presence, there is fullness of joy. Why? Because in God’s presence is grace, and grace leads to gratitude and gratitude to joy.  

The enemy of joy is comparison and entitlement. The secret of joy is gratitude. It’s not about our circumstances. It’s about our perspective.

The answer to finding happiness this new year and the secret of joy is gratitude. I’ve noticed that when my joy bucket feels depleted, it’s a sign that I need to spend more time in God’s presence reflecting on his grace and less time on social media.

That naturally leads me to be more grateful.

Stop for a moment and take inventory of God’s blessings and grace in your life.

Don’t compare your place in life, your church, your spouse, your kids, your income, your gifts, your abilities, or your possessions with others, and if social media has caused you to fall into the comparison trap, take a break.

Find reasons to be grateful for what you have.

Joyful People are Generous People

The most joyful people I know tend to be the most grateful for what they have been given. The most joyful pastors I know tend to be thankful for their church and the people God has entrusted them to lead.

Joyful people become generous people. Joyful pastors become generous pastors.

Finally, generous pastors tend to do a better job investing in others. They tend to do a better job mobilizing others. They recognize God’s grace and already have joy in what he has given.

Perhaps that’s the reason this article is so crucial for mobilizing the church as we begin a new year.

Is the enemy of comparison rearing its ugly head? Defeat it with gratitude and then live a generous life and ministry.