Nehemiah 8:10's declaration to the people weeping over the rediscovered law: Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. The verse establishes a counter-intuitive principle. Strength does not come from suppressing sorrow or manufacturing positivity; it comes from a particular joy — the joy of the LORD, which is to say the joy that has God Himself as its object. This is why Paul can say rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice from a prison cell (Phil 4:4). Christian strength is sustained by Christian joy, and Christian joy is sustained by Christian communion with the LORD whose unchanging character is the joy's ground.