Thought Exercise on Joy

illustration

Joy Awakens from a Smell

Author

Keywords

On a trip to France during college, I (Cyd) was walking through a historic garden in Paris with my older sister. Rounding one of the reflecting pools, we both caught a familiar scent and stopped dead ...

illustration

Joy in Persecution

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:44, Matthew 5:10-12, 2 Corinthians 12:10, Romans 8:35-37, James 1:2-4, Luke 6:22-23

The first thing the group of American church leaders noticed about the Central Asian pastor they were meeting was his smile. It was huge. It was so big that anyone who looked at it had to smile too!...

illustration

The Promise of Joy

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 30:5, Romans 8:18, John 16:20-22, 1 Peter 1:6-8, Isaiah 35:10, Revelation 21:4

When God Talks Back, psychological anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann sets out to explain how sensible people believe in an immaterial God. One aspect of evangelical Christianity that she finds particularl...

illustration

Joy Beacons

Author

Richard Swenson

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 2:12, Isaiah 11:6, Zechariah 8:5, Luke 18:16, Psalm 8:2, Matthew 18:3, Matthew 19:14

Katja, our seven-year-old granddaughter, stepped in it, as they say. She had doggie droppings on the bottom of her tennies. Not just one foot, mind you, but both. Her mother, Maureen, suggested she le...

illustration

Joy With Flesh On

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, Exodus 16:4–5, Isaiah 40:31, Mark 10:14–15, John 15:5,11, Psalm 16:11

I have a photo of one of my children: on a day of pure sunshine, he is running down the hillside, leading with his chest, his smile and stride wide as his speed picks up. Running is pure delight. Agai...

illustration

Judgment and Joy Don't Go Together

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:14-16, James 5:9, Numbers 14:27, 1 Corinthians 10:10, Luke 5:30, 1 Timothy 2:8, Exodus 15:24, Luke 6:37, Matthew 7:1-5, 1 Corinthians 5:12

Judgment and joy don’t go well together – no, judgment leads to grumbling. I’m sure you’ve met people in your life who are hard to please – maybe even your parents, or your boss. People for whom n...

illustration

Joy must be morally clean

Author

Christopher H. J. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 5:19–23 , 1 Peter 4:3–4 , Psalm 100:1–2, Deuteronomy 16:14, Numbers 25:31:16, Exodus 32:34

Joy must be morally clean. God warned Israel not to be tempted by the kind of debauched “joy” of the Canaanite festivals, which included sexual immorality, drunkenness, gluttony, and idolatry. They ha...

illustration

A Firm Foundation of Joy

Author

Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw

Keywords

Children—and then adults—with a firm foundation of joy also have the capacity to make positive contributions in the world. It starts with play and exploration. When a child has a firm foundation of jo...

illustration

Returning to Joy

Author

Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 12:3, Isaiah 41:10, John 15:11, Romans 15:13, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Ideally, when a baby is born into a healthy family, she is received with gladness. Her parents look on her with delight and the baby responds with joy. The baby is wanted—is loved. Her parents will ma...

illustration

Drawing From the Infinite Well of Joy

Author

Eunice McGarrahan

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 4:16, 2 Corinthians 12:9, 1 Peter 5:10, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Revelation 2:10

In Jonathan Kozol’s book, Amazing Grace , he tells of the struggles and sufferings of people in a community in the Bronx, New York. He is amazed at the courage and resilience he found there. He then ...

illustration

News that Brings Joy

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 1:5-6, Ephesians 1:13-14, Galatians 1:6-9, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 1:16, Mark 1:14-15

Euangelion in Greek, which is translated as “good news” or “gospel,” combines angelos, the word for one announcing news, and the prefix eu-, which means “joyful.” Gospel means “news that brings joy.” ...

illustration

Joy Makers?

Author

Mary Carver

Keywords

One day an ad from one of my favorite stores showed up in my email inbox. Splashed across the top in big letters was the phrase “JOY MAKERS.” Of course, the ad was pointing shoppers to deals on toys, ...

illustration

God's Joy Moves From Unmarked Box to Unmarked Box

Author

Anne Lamott

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 19:1, Romans 1:20, Isaiah 6:3, John 1:9-10, Colossians 1:16-17

"God's joy," said by the Persian mystic Rumi, "moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rain water down into flower bed. As roses up from ground. Now it looks ...

illustration

Joy’s Relationship to the Good Life

Author

Miroslav Volf

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 1:8-9, Isaiah 61:10, Matthew 25:21, Galatians 5:22, John 15:11

Could joy, then, be a candidate for a one-word definition of the good life, perhaps in the same way some people think happiness is? Indeed, could it be better able to integrate in itself the requisite...

illustration

The Power of a Grateful Heart

Author

John Kavanaugh

Keywords

Scripture

Habakkuk 3:17–19 , Nehemiah 8:10 , Isaiah 61:1–3 , Philippians 4:11–13, James 1:2–4, Psalm 16:11

Gratitude has a ripple effect, spreading warmth and positivity to those around us. It is nearly impossible to hold onto resentment or self-pity while maintaining a grateful heart. John Kavanaugh share...

illustration

The Greatest Challenge to Faith

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Joy

The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy. I remember sitting at a dinner table with friends discussing the economic depression of the country. We kept throwing out statistics that made u...

illustration

Our Father is Younger Than We

Author

G. K. Chesterton

Keywords

Joy

If you read through G.K. Chesterton’s writings, it will not be long before you recognize the recurring theme of joy. Joy, Chesterton believed, ought to be a central experience of the one who realizes ...

illustration

The Meeting Place of Deep Intentionality and Self-Forgetting

Keywords

In his prose and poetry, David Whyte shares what David Brooks refers to as “emotional joy” in his book, While not necessarily unique to the Christian, this type of joy has the ability to draw us towar...

illustration

Tolkien on Happy Endings

Author

J. R. R. Tolkein

Keywords

Scripture

Titus 3:4-5, Ephesians 2:8, Luke 15:11-32, 1 Corinthians 2:9, Psalm 30:5, Ruth 4:13-17

J. R. R. Tolkien coined the term "eucatastrophe" to refer to the unexpected happy ending at the end of a fairy tale, achieved by grace rather than effort. The consolation of fairy-stories,...

illustration

Francis Collins’ Search for the Divine

Author

Francis S. Collins

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:11, Isaiah 55:1-3 , Exodus 33:18-23, Romans 8:22-23 , John 4:13-14 , Psalm 42:1-2

While the search for the divine has been somewhat crowded out in modern times by our busy and overstimulated lives, it is still one of the most universal of human strivings. C. S. Lewis describes this...

illustration

Giving Away Lobsters

Author

John C. Maxwell

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 13:16, Matthew 6:19-21, Proverbs 11:25, Luke 6:38, 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, Acts 20:35

My friend James Crocker, a successful entrepreneur, recently shared a story with me…James and a few of his friends went out on a boat trip to fish for lobsters and had succeeded in gathering a massive...

illustration

The Love of God Wrapped About Him

Author

Thomas Kelly

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 4:1-3, Psalm 30:5, Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 43:2, Psalm 23:4, Job 1:, Job 2:, Job 42:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:, Genesis 37:12-36, 1 Kings 17:8-24, Daniel 6:, Psalm 34:18

The sense of Presence! I have spoken of it as stealing on one unawares. It is recorded of John Wilhelm Rowntree that as he left a great physician’s office, where he had just been told that his advanci...

illustration

A Quiet and Holy People with a Great Secret

Keywords

As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a friend: “It’s a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who ...

illustration

The Prayers of The Psalms

Author

John Starke

Keywords

The prayers in the Psalms use words of waiting, watching, listening, tasting and seeing, meditating, and resting. It’s remarkable how inefficient these actions are. They aren’t accomplishing anything....

illustration

Hope Chicago Given a Big Boost of Its Namesake

Author

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

Keywords

The celebrated CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes presented a segment on August 14, 2022, titled “Hope Chicago.” The segment tells a remarkable story about what happened to students at a high school on...

illustration

Are You Afraid You'll Get Caught?

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 1:16, John 15:19-20, Matthew 5:10-12, Mark 10:29-30, Revelation 2:10-11, Matthew 10:16-18, 1 Peter 4:12-14, Romans 8:35, 2 Corinthians 12:10

An American pastor once asked an Indonesian missionary who works among Indonesians but with a different people group from his own, “Are you afraid you’ll get caught?” Christian mission work in Indones...

illustration

In the Old Testament, the book of Psalms is called

Keywords

Scripture

Job 1:20–21, Lamentations 3:19–24, 1 Samuel 1:10–18 , Psalm 42:5 , 2 Corinthians 6:10 , Romans 5:3–5

In the Old Testament, the book of Psalms is called, in Hebrew, “The Praises.” And yet the single largest category of “praises” within it consists of laments! That is, people were bringing before God t...

illustration

Creation at Play

Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, Exodus 31:1-5, Job 38:4-7, John 1:1-3 , Colossians 1:16-17, Psalm 8:3-4

Creation as it felt to God — since then every artist has felt an echo, a sympathetic vibration: a craftsman who squints at his finished product and reckons, “Very good”; a performer who cannot suppres...

illustration

Merton’s Turn to Christ and Virtue

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

James 3:17, Romans 12:2, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 1 Timothy 4:12, Titus 2:7-8

In The Seven Storey Mountain , Thomas Merton describes his life of sin and his eventual turning to God in his early years. He despised and ridiculed the word virtue, which had come to mean “prudery p...

illustration

Chapter One of the Great Story

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 21:1-8, Acts 3:19-21, John 14:2-3, John 14:2-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Philippians 3:20-21, 1 Corinthians 13:12

In the epic conclusion to the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis attempts to express the absolute joy that will come as our earthly lives come to an end and we are reunited with our God for all of eternity...

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Ezra

Nehemiah

Esther

Job

Psalm

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel