Pleasure or Joy – is there a difference? I was having a conversation with someone last week and he began to speak about pleasure vs. joy. As he told it, pleasure is fleeting, joy is lasting. He gave an example, ‘I can have a glass of wine and that could bring me great pleasure…a good wine, sitting to enjoy it, perhaps sharing it with others, great pleasure. But when the glass is finished, the pleasure is over.’
Joy is more eternal because joy does not depend on outside circumstances. Joy is an attitude of the heart. Joy can sustain good times and bad, peace and turmoil, pain and sorrow.
I’m sure that Jesus didn’t feel any pleasure on the cross…but, I would imagine that he kept joy in his heart. Otherwise, how could he have chosen to do what he did?
Pleasure feels good. Joy produces good.
Reflections on the Journey 
Interesting – I had never thought about that!
God Bless you
Neither had I!
I remember a conversation with someone about this and we also thought that joy can exist in sadness or difficult times.
Certainly a word worth thinking about.
blessings m+x
I do agree with that
Joy is a gift of the spirit… This week, I read in Give Us This Day some words from the Vietnamese St Andrew Dung Lac: “In the midst of these torments which usually terrify others, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone — Christ is with me. Our Master bears the whole weight of the cross leaving me only the tiniest, last bit.”
As to pleasure, I find Godde often comes in small pleasures 🙂
Love that Claire – ‘only the tiniest, last bit’. Only someone who has know great challenges could write something like that – beautiful!