Chase The Kangaroo

The light is doing more than lingering now.

It’s pushing back.

Winter still holds the ground. The air still bites. Nothing about the season has softened in any obvious way. And yet, the day carries itself differently. There’s a lift to it. A quiet confidence, as if the world knows something it hasn’t yet revealed.

We are still waiting.
But we are no longer bracing.

Earlier in the season, hope asked us to endure. It trained our eyes on the horizon and taught us to keep watch. Then peace arrived, not as resolution, but as assurance. The question of whether was settled, even if the when was not.

Joy begins there.

Joy is not the thing we hope for. It is what rises in us once we know the thing hoped for is, in fact, coming. It’s the elation that follows certainty. The moment when waiting loosens its grip and turns from strain into anticipation.

Scripture knows this well. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice, before the child is born, before the story unfolds, she says, “The baby in my womb leaped for joy.” Nothing has arrived yet, but something is already known. The promise is secure, and the body responds before the mind can explain it.

This is the difference between holding your breath and laughing as you exhale.

Peace settles you.
Joy lifts you.

Joy has motion. You walk differently when you trust the outcome. Your step lightens. You stop checking the clock. You stop rehearsing disappointment. You find yourself humming without deciding to. The waiting remains, but it no longer weighs you down. It carries you forward.

This is why Advent joy does not wait for Christmas morning. It appears earlier, quieter, sturdier. Isaiah names it when he writes, “The ransomed of the Lord shall return… with singing.” Singing comes before arrival. Joy breaks out because the ending is no longer in question.

We often miss this because we’ve been taught to associate joy with possession. With immediacy. With getting what we want as quickly as possible. But joy, in its truest form, doesn’t demand fulfillment on demand. It grows out of trust.

Joy allows restraint without bitterness.

You abstain not because the thing is forbidden, but because it is secured. You don’t grasp because there’s nothing left to prove. Joy frees you from urgency. It replaces restlessness with confidence.

As Augustine put it, joy is the happiness of the heart that results from truth. When truth takes hold, joy follows.

And joy never stays contained for long.

It overflows. It becomes generosity. Hospitality. A steadiness others can lean on. Paul names the sequence plainly: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” Believing first. Peace settling in. Joy rising up.

This is an invitation.

Not to manufacture joy. Not to perform it. But to discover where it already stirs in your life.

Where have you stopped grasping because you trust the outcome?

Where has waiting shifted from anxiety to anticipation?

Where do you sense lift, movement, gladness that isn’t dependent on circumstances?

Pay attention there.

Joy is rarely loud. It’s often subtle. A quiet confidence. A growing energy. A sense that the light is gaining ground.

This week, don’t rush past it. Explore it. Walk with it. Let joy teach you what it’s rooted in.

The promise is coming.
You can feel it now.