Praying for joy: A call to put rejoicing at the heart of Christian life
We have so much to rejoice about in Christ! Christians should be known for their joy. This article examines some of the reasons why Christians should be joyful people and why that is often not the case. It argues for making a goal of joy and suggests some things we can do to engage in the fight for joy, beginning with making praying for joy a regular part of our prayers.((In this blog I draw on John Piper’s book, When I don’t Desire God, How to Fight for Joy, Crossway Books, Wheaton, 2003. Quotes are from 2004 edition, Christ is All Media Publications, Londonderry. It is available for free download via the link on desiringgod.org))
Praying for joy doesn’t sound very evangelical
Praying for joy is not the kind of thing that we evangelicals are known for! We are not generally known for our joyful delight in God. The emphasis has long been on the rationality of our faith. Some of us have focused so much on having a “reason for the hope that is in us” that we have missed the joy. It’s like we chomped through the greens because we knew they were good for us but ignored the delight of sticky toffee pudding that was also set before us! For many of us ( I absolutely include myself), the call of duty can drown out the call of delight. We can all too easily be outwardly champions of grace while the inner reality is a legalistic grind, driven by our sense of duty rather than drawn by love.
Joy is normal for the Christian
Of course, we all go through challenging times and dry times in our Christian life. That too is normal. I am not talking about a constant state of victory where nothing fazes us. Nor do I want to bring guilt on anyone who suffers from depression: As someone who is much more like Eeyore than Tigger, I have some insight into how difficult that can be. I am simply making the case that there is joy to be had in Jesus, and that praying for joy is a right and proper thing for us to do. Let’s look at a few Scriptures (a tiny sample of many possible examples).
The kingdom of heaven as a delight
In Matthew 13, Jesus explains what his kingdom is like in a series of parables. Verses 44-45 compare the kingdom to a hidden treasure and to a very fine pearl. The man who finds the treasure and the merchant who finds the pearl are not saddened by what they are going to cost. No, they just can’t wait to get their hands on them! In v44 the man for joy sells all he has to get hold of the treasure:
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
Matthew 13:44
Salvation leads to joy
In 1 Peter 1:3-9, Peter begins his letter with an outpouring of joyful praise. He revels in what God has done for him and for his readers, giving them new birth and a living hope and the promise of glory to come that cannot perish, spoil or fade. Things may not be easy for them right now, but they are assured that God will shield them by his power (v5) and bring them with certainty to that day. And so they rejoice(v6)! In fact, what they experience already of Jesus and his salvation causes them to be “filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (v8).
Paul commands joy
The letter to the Philippians refers often to joy, despite being written from prison. In Phil 4:4 Paul doubles up the command:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
Phil 4:4
He wants to make the point: Joy is important! Similarly, at the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul gives the command, “Rejoice always!” (1 Thess 5:16).
For Paul, joy was a priority. If he commanded it, it was because he knew that his readers had joy to express. It would have been cruel to command something that they could not do. But this was not the case. They just need stirring up to express their joy.((More could certainly be said about the command to rejoice. Please add a comment below if you have thoughts on this.))
Praying for joy features in Paul’s blessing
Towards the end of his letter to the Roman believers, joy is a major part of the blessing that Paul prays for them (Rom 15:13):
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Rom 15:13
Summary
Jesus taught that his new life was a such a joyful treasure that people would gladly give up everything else to have it. Peter revelled in the joy of salvation, and Paul commanded it. When he prayed a blessing, joy was at its heart.
The nature of the Christian’s normal joy
Christian joy is not the same as happiness
We should not confuse joy with happiness. We are happy when all is going well, and we are content with life. However, the Bible makes it clear that, for the Christian, life often does not go well. Trials are normal (1 Pet 4:12). It should not surprise us if the world hates us, with all the consequences that their hatred may bring (1 John 3:13). We find ourselves caught between the already and the not yet. Painfully aware that sin is still a reality in our lives (Phil 3:12), we long for the culmination of our salvation. We long, too, for the suffering of this fallen world to end in God’s new creation (Rom 8:20-23).
And yet there is available an underlying joy that sustains through all of this.
Joy and hope
This joy is linked to hope. We know that all our present suffering is only temporary and that our trials are all part of God’s master plan to prepare us for glory (Rom 5:3-5). There is delight and wonder and glory to come, deliverance from sin and from preoccupation with self. No longer concerned with our own needs, we will be freed into joyous praise and joyous service. When we understand this, we can see all our present trials in a new light. They are temporary, but they help shape us for eternal joy (2 Cor 4:16-18).
Rejoicing in present blessing
However, our joy is not only rooted on what is to come. There is joy now too, because God has already blessed us with so much. God has lavished the riches of his grace upon us; he has redeemed and forgiven us (Eph 1:7-8); he has given us new birth (1 Pet 1:3) and he has given us the Holy Spirit. By him God has adopted us as his children, so that we cry from our hearts, “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15). God has brought us into this amazing relationship with him, so that we learn to love him and to have fellowship with him. He is our Saviour and protector; he has even (I say it reverently) called us “friends” (John 15:15)!
Why we need to be praying for joy
We lose sight of the truth
If all this is true, if we have joy despite our difficulties, joy that springs from both glorious hope for the future and amazing blessings right now, why are we so often weighed down? The reason is quite simple: we lose sight of the truth. We become like the seed that fell among thorns, “choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures” (Luke 8:14).
Two images of our skewed perception
Everyday preoccupations and distractions can so take up our attention that spiritual realities fade from our minds. When we do turn our minds to God, it’s like the lens we look through goes gradually out of focus. What once impacted us with joyful clarity becomes fuzzier and fuzzier. Or think of it as a pair of scales, with worldly realities on one side and spiritual realities on the other. The scales represent our perception of the truth. As we neglect the things of God, the scales are tipped towards the earthly side and the potentially joyous truths of God’s blessing have less and less weight in our lives.
The fight for joy
Getting the lens in focus and rebalancing the scales are not going to happen until we get serious about the task we face. We have no button for automatic focus, no easy way to balance up the scales. There is a fundamental struggle in the Christian life to live in the world but not of it, to keep seeing what is invisible, to keep living in the light of eternity. There is a battle that we must fight, as we saw in The warfare of Prayer.
We have an enemy, and his tactic is to blind us from the truth (2 Cor 4:4). Victory often comes when God opens our eyes, as Paul prayed for the Ephesians (Eph 1:18 and 3:17-18).
The fight of the Christian life is the fight to see. And because true seeing brings joy, our fight is a fight for joy:
…Christianity is mortal combat for true and lasting joy.
John Piper((Piper, Op. cit., 2004, p103.))
Praying for joy is not necessarily a selfish prayer
Maybe some will recoil at the idea of praying for joy because it seems to them a self-centred prayer. If that is all we prayed for then it would indeed be selfish. However, when we understand that joy flows as we see the glorious truths of our faith and walk in them, praying for joy is absolutely the right thing to do. It is right too because joyful believers bring more glory to God than gloomy ones, and their lives and witness have greater impact in the world. God is glorified in us as we delight in his blessings: Not so much when they bring us no joy.
Praying for Joy: How to take up the fight
So, how do we take up arms in this fight for joy? There is much good and detailed advice in Piper’s book, however, here are a few ideas. I begin with praying for joy; in fact I suggest that we approach all of them with prayer.
1. Pray for joy
Why not incorporate praying for joy into your regular prayers? If our reason for asking is to honour God by equipping ourselves to serve and worship and witness more effectively, then surely God will honour our prayer. Praying often for joy will also help us to keep this goal in mind and to persevere in the fight for joy.
2. Read the Word
The most important means of sharpening our focus so that we see and inwardly grasp the truth is the Word of God. Give time to reading the Bible. Learn from its stories; absorb its teaching. Learn how its disparate books fit together in one wonderful, over-arching message of salvation.
3. Meditate on the Word
We must do more than read; we must meditate, lingering over verses, turning them over in our minds until their truth begins to sink in. We have to go beyond an intellectual understanding to an inner heart understanding, so that we perceive how the truth impacts us. As we do so, an emotional response begins to awake within us.
It is the difference between knowing that God has forgiven us, for example, to experiencing the delight of being forgiven. Imagine the sheer delight and relief of Pilgrim as he felt his burden fall from his back and saw it roll away down the hill.((Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan, Part 1, Section 3.))
It is the difference between reading about the goodness and glory of God and experiencing breath-taking awe and wonder and delight and sweetness in his presence. It is, of course, about much more than our mental effort. It is the Spirit of God who brings all this about. Nevertheless, we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit through our prayerful meditation on the Bible verses, asking Him to reveal truth to us as we do so.
I do not mean to say that we must respond emotionally every time we read the Bible. There will be times when it seems dry and we don’t feel anything much at all, and that’s fine. But if the truths of the gospel never move us, if they never stir our hearts, then something is wrong. At the very least we are missing out, and we will find the fight for faith and joy very hard.
Read the Word and meditate on it and pray for joy.
4. Worship in praise
While all of our lives should be worship (Rom 12:1), there is something special about giving voice to our praise, whether in speaking or in singing. Giving thanks and praise are wonderful ways of taking delight in God (Psalm 37:4). They will help us greatly in our praying for joy.
5. Persevere in the disciplines of the Christian life
The call to delight in God does not mean that we neglect our duties. There are many things that we must do if we are to serve our God faithfully and fight sin in our lives. If we only did those things when we felt inspired by our delight in God, then most of us would be very poor Christians indeed. What I am saying does not negate the need to live disciplined lives, to run the race with determination and keeping our bodies under control (1 Cor 9:24-27).
Building a bonfire for the Spirit to set alight
When I was a child, in the run up to November the 5th((For readers outside the UK this is “Bonfire Night” here.)), great piles of wood and sticks and anything that would burn would appear on the local green. By Bonfire Night there was a massive mound of combustible material to be set alight. All of our acts of daily, persevering service and worship, reading and prayer are like sticks and branches added to the bonfire mound. When the Holy Spirit deems the time is right, he will come and set it ablaze!((Illustration taken from Piper, but I can’t find where he said it!))
6. Serve and share the gospel
Lastly, joy often comes as we forget ourselves and become absorbed in our work for God and for others. There is a joy in serving, and especially in the type of serving which is sharing the gospel with unbelievers.((Piper, Op. cit., pp227-8.))
Conclusion
Joy is normal for the Christian, but it is not automatic. There is a battle to be fought and we have an active enemy. He will do all he can to dull our perception of the truth. In large part our battle is a battle to see things as they really are. Praying for joy and having joy as a goal will help us in that battle. Some of us struggle more in this battle than others. If that is the case, let’s not allow guilt to make us feel even worse, but simply ask God for more strength and wisdom in the fight.
Having joy in God as a goal also helps us to persevere in the daily discipline of life. It gives a proper context to our service and our self-denial. We are not doing those arduous and taxing duties solely because we are aiming to please God by doing them. Rather, we do them because God has given us a glimpse of glory, a hidden treasure, a beautifully shining pearl that puts everything else in the shade. The thought that our discipline is helping towards that end of glorious, self-forgetting, anxiety-dissolving joy can help sustain us. And it’s not just a glorious prospect for our future, we can taste it now. And as we do so, we will bear more fruit and bring more glory to our great joy-providing God.