The Joy of the Lord

Recently I have been wondering about the joy of the Lord and what it means to have joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength, so I've been told, but it's often hard to take that saying seriously, isn't it? Scripture says to work out our faith with fear and trembling, carefully, honoring God. This tells me that I am to figure out what I believe and why and to know exactly what I put my faith in so I'm not just blindly tootling through my Christian life, and this is what I've been trying to do for the past eight years.

At the beginning of this, I think I could say I had more of the joy of the Lord than I do now. The past four-five years have taken their toll, and understandably so; I've been through some of the worst, hardest trials of my life in the last four years. Still, there are Christians who face much worse hardship than this and they are some of the most joyful people in the world. What's wrong with me?

I've been working out my faith carefully with fear and trembling, and I think I've become too concerned with getting everything right. When I think of being joyful, I think of a child laughing and playing in the open air, happy just for life, completely carefree. But I'm not a child. I'm a grown adult with relationships and responsibilities and requirements pressing on me. I think I have to be right or else I'll be wrong and fail. If I fail, then I'm not being very responsible and therefore not a good steward of the responsibilities God has entrusted to me. It seems like I'm damned if I try to be responsible and damned if I'm carefree. Where is the joy of the Lord in this equation?

It will take me time to ponder this. I'm not really looking for an answer, but a conclusion would be nice.