my story of joy

There was a time when joy came to me as easily as falling in love. I was 15, and for the first time the wonder of God in Christ opened before me. I read the Bible like someone thirsty gulping down water. I escaped to my room to pray. I closed my eyes, and slipped into joy like a second skin.

There was a time when joy was lost to me with the suddenness of unexpected grief. I was 17, and praying felt like staring into darkness. The Bible seemed to be only dry and dusty paper. Having lost joy, I pursued emotional "experiences" instead, but they were as fleeting and meaningless as an empty look from an old boyfriend. ...

Read the rest at EQUIP book club today.

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that '70s book

I was chatting with my 20-something nephew a couple of weeks ago about books we liked. Inevitably, The Lord of the Rings came up.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I tried to read that three times, but I didn't get very far. I reckon the only reason people ever read that book is that there was nothing else to do in the '70s."

Nothing else? Nothing else?

What about ABBA? What about Grease? What about Atari? What about Pong? What about rollerskating? What about rollerskating to ABBA?

In those moments of spinning on four wheels to the sound of Dancing Queen echoing around the carport from our portable cassette player, we knew what it was to live.

Yes, yes, I know it's really that '50s book, but I guess my nephew sees me as a '70s child. Which I was. Kind of. Nearly. At least after I turned 1. And the '70s is when everyone was reading it. Wasn't it? Including me. Or that might have been the '80s. Whatever.

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depression and the fight for joy

There have been times when I woke to series of days filled with dreary dullness. Every movement had to be forced against a resisting heaviness. Joy in God was like something seen through the small end of a telescope: impossibly remote and endlessly receding.

I say this knowing that my experience is a tiny, salty drop in the ocean of what you may have experienced. If depression ranges from mild to severe - or "situational" to "clinical" - then I have only been at the very mild end of the spectrum. I have friends who have been in and out of hospital fighting relentless darkness for many years, and other friends for whom anxiety is debilitating and depression a horror which visits and leaves without warning.

Piper is too experienced a pastor not to know about such times. And so he writes this final chapter. So relevant is its message that it's been printed as a separate booklet, When the Darkness Will not Lift.

What does God have to do with depression? ...

You can read the rest at EQUIP book club today.

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Roger Rosenblatt on borrowing books

My dear friend Jenny sent me this quote from a book she was reading. I laughed.

The custom of borrowing books confutes nature. In every other such situation, the borrower becomes a slave to the lender, the social weight of the debt so altering the balance of a relationship that a temporary acquisition turns into a permanent loss. This is certainly true of money. Yet it is not at all true with books. For some reason a book borrower feels that a book, once taken, is his own. This removes both memory and guilt from the transaction. Making matters worse, the lender believes it too. To keep up appearances, he may solemnly extract an oath that the book be brought back as soon as possible; the borrower answering with the matching solemnity that the Lord seize his eyes were he to do otherwise. But it is all play. Once gone, the book is gone forever. The lender, fearing rudeness, never asks for it again. The borrower never stoops to raise the subject...

There's no spectacle that is so terrifying as the sight of a guest in your house whom you catch staring at your books. It is not the judgmental possibility that is frightening. the fact that one's sense of discrimination is exposed by his books. Indeed, most people would much prefer to see the guest first scan, then peer and turn away in boredom or disapproval. Alas, too often the eyes, dark with calculation, shift from title to title as from floozie to floozie in an overheated dance hall. Nor is that the worst. It is when those eyes stop moving that the heart, too, stops.

The guest body twitches; his hand floats up to where his eyes have led it. There is nothing to be done. You freeze. He smiles. You hear the question even as it forms: Would you mind if I borrowed this book?" Mind? Why should I mind? The fact that I came upon that book in a Paris bookstall in April 1969 - the thirteenth, I believe it was, the afternoon, it was drizzling - that I found it after searching all Europe and North America for a copy; that it is dog-eared at passages that mean more to my life than my heartbeat; that the mere touch of its pages recalls to me in a Proustian shower my first love, my best dreams. Should I mind that you seek to take all that away? That I will undoubtedly never get it back? Then even if you actually return it to me one day, I will be wizened, you cavalier, and the book spoiled utterly by your mishandling? Mind? "Not at all. Hope you enjoy it." "Thanks. I'll bring it back next week." "No rush. Take your time." [Liar.]

from a monologue by Roger Rosenblatt, quote in Harold Rabinowitz A Passion for Books

using the world and our bodies to fight for joy

We're bodily creatures. When we don't get enough sleep, we feel irritable. When we hear music, we're moved to tears or joy. ... Even if we don't admit it, we all use physical means to affect how we feel. So how do we avoid emotional manipulation and idolising created things, while using the world and our bodies in the fight for joy? ...

It's a little ironic, but as I sit hunched over the computer, neglecting a certain amount of exercise and rest to write these posts, it's these words which come to mind:

To sit long in one posture, poring over a book ... is itself a taxing of nature; but add to this a badly ventilated room, a body which has long been without muscular exercise, and a heart burdened with many cares, and we have all the elements for preparing a seething cauldron of despair . . . He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy. A day’s breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours’ ramble in the beech woods’ umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive. (quote from C Spurgeon on p.204 extended)

How important this has been in my own fight for joy! As I walk through God's world and think and pray, I practise both of Piper's means for using the world in the fight for joy: I see God's glory revealed in the things around me, and I help my body to become a partner in the fight for joy through rest, exercise and the refreshing beauty of God's good world.

You can read the rest at EQUIP books today - just click here.

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praying for joy

How do you feel about prayer? Do you enjoy it (this miraculous opportunity to talk to your heavenly Father!) or do you find it hard (staring into space, speaking into silence)? Do the words "prayer" and "joy" go together?

What are your temptations when it comes to prayer? Here are mine:
- I'm tempted to treat prayer as a time to work myself into a state of trust and joy, instead of asking God
- I'm tempted to be lazy about the bread-and-butter of prayer: intercession for my family, community and world
- I'm tempted to pour my heart out to others and not to God
- I'm tempted to get it all together before I pray

One thing I'm learning is to come to God as I am. Not to put it off until I haven't been quite so sinful. Not to avoid God because I've been avoiding him recently and I feel guilty. Not to wait until my thoughts and emotions are together enough to frame a clear request. To come to God confused, unhappy, doubting or angry. To come to God with the guilt and the mistakes and the pain and the questions. To come to God because of his grace, not my goodness. To come to God messy.

Until I do this, I deprive myself of a great weapon in the fight for joy. Joy becomes something I achieve (or don't achieve!) through my Bible reading, my sought-out encouragement, my biblical counselling techniques. Joy shifts sideways into smaller goals: a happy family, an organised life, a friendship. Joy turns into something I try to feel before I pray. Instead of going to God, crying out my emptiness to him, and seeking his fullness, I fill myself with the fruit of my own efforts.

Which is pretty stupid. Try as I might, I can't fill myself with joy. I can't make myself desire God: only God can do that.

How then do we fight for joy when our desires languish... ? ... The key to joy in God is God's omnipotent, transforming grace ... [T]he great purpose of prayer is to ask that - in and through all his gifts - God would be our joy. (p.138)

So how do we pray? What will keep us real and keep us praying? ...

You can read the rest at EQUIP book club - just click here.

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hospitality is ...

My mum had guests over the other day.

She hadn't planned to invite anyone for lunch, but she'd made a pot of soup and baked some biscuits, and there were some odds and ends in the fridge, so she asked around after church until two couples she hadn't met before accepted her invitation.

"That's hospitality", said one of her guests. "Entertaining is when you go to a lot of fuss and bother.

"Hospitality is when you share what you have."

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the Bible and joy

I love the Bible. It's the honey on my tongue and the fire in my belly and the sword in my hand and the joy in my step.

I love reading it on those dull days when I'd rather pick up a novel, and watching it works its magic in spite of me. I love memorising passages, and seeing God's Spirit bring them to mind exactly when they're needed. I love nutting out difficult verses, and realising they're nutting out me.

Of course, there are mornings when the newspaper wins the reading contest. There are days - sometimes months! - that pass by without much Bible. There are plenty of moments when the words drift through my eyes and spiral straight out the top of my head. There are times when the words on the page don't touch the way I'm feeling.

But God's Word changes me even when I'm not noticing. It nourishes me even when I don't feel it. It gives me what I need even when I'm hoping for something else. It helps me see the glory of Christ and transforms me by the seeing until he is, at last, my highest joy:

God has chosen in this age to reveal himself to the world mainly through the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, by means of the written Word, the Bible ... It may take the Word of God to show us what we really need, and then to give us the power to get it. In the end what we really need is Christ. (pp.96, 100)

So how do we read the Bible? How do we keep reading the Bible? The best advice I've ever received is Piper's: plan how, plan when, plan where. If this sounds like legalism to you, Piper's The joy of duty will set you right - and The Quiet Time Performance will remind you to stay in God's grace. Use Jennie Baddeley's practical theology for women to assess how your Bible reading is going. ...

Here's some ideas for engaging with the Bible. ...

You can read the rest at EQUIP book club today - just click here.

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a worksheet for changing your behaviour

A couple of months ago, I posted some questionnaires to help you identify the lies and idols of your heart. Since then, we've talked about how important it is to not just change our thinking, but also to change our behaviour - to put off the old self and put on the new (Eph 4:22-24).

Today I'd like to tell you about a worksheet, inspired (again!) by Elyse Fitzpatrick's Idols of the Heart, to help you take practical steps to change your attitudes and actions.

Choose a habitual sin that you struggle with, or a persistent negative emotion like anger, guilt, despondency or anxiety. Draw up four columns on a page. Write these headings and questions at the top of the columns:

Put off
What attitudes and actions does God want you to put off?
What areas of temptation can you cut out?


Renewed thoughts
What thoughts of God’s truth and the gospel would help you combat these attitudes and actions?

Put on
What attitudes and actions does God want you to put on?
What would support this change (e.g. memorising relevant Bible verses, being accountable to someone)?


Specific actions
What specific steps can you take to start practising these new attitudes and actions?
What specific steps can you take to support this change?


I hope you find this as helpful as I have!

adapted from the worksheet in Elyse Fitzpatrick's Idols of the Heart 176

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preach the gospel to yourself

I think you'll really enjoy EQUIP books this week. Today's post is about how to remember the gospel, on Wednesday I'll write about the Bible, and on Friday I'll talk about prayer. There'll be lots of practical ideas, and links to what other people have written, in a kind of extended online meandering. Here's how today's post begins (click here to read the whole post).

Preach the gospel to yourself. Ever since I was first encouraged to do this, it's become one of my most important weapons in the fight for joy.

Preach the gospel to yourself. Women especially need to heed this call. We hear a talk on biblical womanhood, and are burdened by a hundred ways we need to change. We're self-aware, and emotionally and relationally aware, so we're often very sensitive to our faults and weaknesses. We need to be reminded, over and over, that God's love doesn't depend on what we do, that change is motivated and enabled by grace, and that obedience isn't about rules but love. We need to keep returning to the cross.

Preach the gospel to yourself. This is the first and central strategy in the fight for joy. Any helpful spiritual practice is really just a way to make this happen.

Hearing the word of the cross, and preaching it to ourselves, is the central strategy for sinners in the fight for joy. Nothing works without this. Here is where we start. And here is where we stay. We never outgrow the gospel. Here we see the glory of Christ more clearly than anywhere. ... And here in the cross is where every enemy of joy is overcome. ... What could stop our joy if we really believed this truth: Everything we need to be satisfied in God, the cross has made certain. It cannot fail. (pp.91-92)

... How do you preach the gospel to yourself? Tell us about it in the comments! Here's my ideas ...

You can read the rest at EQUIP book club - just click here.

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