Choosing Joy vs. Chasing Joy

Choosing joy vs. chasing joy?
Oftentimes, women will write and say that they don’t feel joyful, so they are going to do this or that to try to remedy their “joy” as if by sheer willpower we can increase true joy by chasing the material.
I understand what they mean, but since I talk about choosing joy here, I want to differentiate between choosing joy and chasing joy because the two are very different actions leading to very different ends.

Chasing joy?
As Christians, our goal is to know God and enjoy Him forever. Any other aim or “end” will lead you down deviant path. They are mere outcomes and we weren’t meant to live for “outcomes” or to set our hearts on achievements–not on joy, perfect parenting, being respected in the community, being the go-to person for advice, service for God, ministry for God, having the largest business/audience/influence. These things fall so short of God’s desire for us.
So, when we chase joy, instead of seeking to know God more intimately in our moments of need, we’re on the wrong track.
And God, in His mercy, will place our wandering hearts back on the potter’s wheel of grace and mold us into the image of His Son by allowing trials, weakness, lack, or whatever He feels will strip us of our sin and bring our wandering hearts back to land squarely and solely on Him.
Choose Joy.
The great simplifier of all life is this: When our aim in life is God alone and knowing Him, life is transformed even when circumstances are the same. Even in the middle of trials, we can CHOOSE JOY, knowing it’s bringing us closer to our desired end and we’ll never lose Him. “What shall separate us from the love of God?” If this is our true aim, then those things, even the unbearably hard, and tender hurts that bring us pain, the loss we experience in this broken world, they are all areas that drive us to Him as we see His goodness in the middle and choose to count it as good. The trial becomes precious and a catalyst for seeing God. Seek God and choose joy!