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| Fight for Joy! |
As the post title intimates, this is about fighting for Joy. A few years back I read Piper's book, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight For Joy. I found it quite helpful and practical. It was a much needed sequel to Desiring God.
While Christ is the supreme object of our affections and giver of joy, Piper believes God uses means - means which point us back to Him.
"I believe untold resources for mental health and spiritual joy in God lie all around us if we would but open our eyes." Piper pg 197
Piper's old teacher, Clyde Kilby shared one way of overcoming, (as Piper calls it), our bent toward blindness for the wonders of the ordinary.
While I found this quite helpful, I urge caution and discernment. I understand them more as supplementary suggestions than imperative commands. Enjoy!
"1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above me and about me.
2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death, when he said: "There is darkness without and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then there is nothing."
3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.
4. I shall not turn my life into a thin straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.
5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.
6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what [C.S.] Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying, and ecstatic"existence.
7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder."
8. I shall follow Darwin's advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.
9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is just now.
10. If for nothing more than the sake of a change of view, I shall assume my ancestry to be from the heavens rather than from the caves.
11. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life in the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls Himself Alpha and Omega." Clyde Kilby pg 197-198
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| The Book, a Supplementary Aid |
Thanks for checking it out. I found this book chock full of helpful tools, and especially helpful in pointing us back to the Word and Prayer. Piper delves into how we can so read the text and so pray as to meet with God and enjoy Him; that we would glorify Him, and that He would fill us with joy in Him.
Soli Deo Gloria
Josh
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| Reform your life and doctrine, meet with God in the text |
3 comments:
Josh,
I have thought deeply about this idea of fighting for joy and it seems strange to me because when I am deeply depressed or in terrible anguish over something that is going on around me fighting for joy does not seem to work. What does work for me is the biblical idea of “counting it all joy”:
James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, (3) for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. (4) And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Recognizing that everything happening to me is purposed by God, even the down times! Knowing and recognizing the sovereignty of God in everything that is happening to me helps me to count it all joy. My joy is in Christ not in my good works. This does not mean that I feel joyful at every event, but rather I acknowledge that God has a purpose in even the mundane, difficult, stressful, ordinary things that go on everyday in my life. Like James I am content because I understand that everything is working together for my good. Learning to trust God completely, so that I might become, “Perfect and complete and lacking in nothing”.
2 Corinthians 12:10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Philippians 4:11-13 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. (12) I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. (13) I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Hebrews 13:5-6 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (6) So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"
I found these words so encouraging today. This is one Piper book I have not read. I'll have get my hands on it one of these days. I love how his idealism meets with realism and his other-worldliness leaves his feet still firm on the ground.
I like this bit: "Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work." Words to live by.
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