WHERE ENJOYMENT POINTS US

'...in God's world, enjoyment is a clue to reality's deepest, brightest secret: that the universe is the gleeful invention of unassailably happy God.'

Bobby Jamieson, Everything Is Never Enough, p.132.

BLISS NOW IS JUST THE BASELINE

'How easily we forget that the highest pinnacles of bliss in this life are merely the baseline for the world to come.'

Adam Ramsey, Faithfully Present: Embracing the Limits of Where and When God Has You, p.85.

THE HOPE IN FAIRY STORIES

'The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous 'turn' (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale - or otherworld - setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

It is the mark of a good fairy story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to the child or man that hears it, when the 'turn' comes, a catch of breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given my any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.'

JRR Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p.153.

ENJOYING GOD

'Our job is to go sunbathing in the Father's love! Close your eyes, sit back in your chair and feel the warmth of his love on your skin.'

Tim Chester, Enjoying God, p.39.

ALL OF LIFE IS SACRAMENTAL

'Edwards teaches us, then, of the God-centredness of all joy in this fallen world. He reminds us that the formula of joy is not God and _____ so much as God in _____. Christ is not one more element to fit into an already packed schedule - one more item on a growing list of priorities. Knowing Christ means seeing all of life in a new way, with new glasses. Jesus Christ gives meaning to all properties, not only heading the list but coloring every one with new and exciting meaning. To become a Christian is to make all of life sacramental. "From him and though him and to him are all things" (Rom.11:36). True joy derives not from God and job, family, sex, friends, food, rest, driving, buying a home, reading a book, drinking coffee - but from God in these things.'

Dane C Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life, p.77.

ULTIMATE JOY

'Ultimate joy comes not from a lover or a landscape or a home, but through them...They point to what is "higher up" and "further back."'

Cornelius Plantinga in Dane C Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life, p.77.

THE PURE FUN OF HOLINESS

'...there is nothing more thrilling, more solid, more exhilarating, more humanity-restoring, more radiantly joyous, than holiness.'
Dane C Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God, p.26.

WHERE PLEASURE SHOULD LEAD US

'The Christian life is not an an ascetic life, but a life in which every received pleasure draws the mind up to supreme Pleasure, Christ himself, in his resplendent beauty. Joy is fundamentally a vision of God.' 

Dane Ortlund in Julian Hardyman, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, p.162.

JOY = HAPPINESS

'The notion that we can have joy without happiness has perverted the meaning of both words and helped spawn a culture of Christian curmudgeons. Feeling morally superior, they may affirm that they have the joy of Jesus deep in their hearts, but apparently it's so deep it never makes the way to their faces.' 

Randy Alcorn, Does God Want Us to Be Happy? p.48. 

HIDDEN SERVICE AS THANKSGIVING

'Joyous hidden service to others is an acted prayer of thanksgiving.' 

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline p.163. 

SERVICE LEADS TO JOY

'Have you ever noticed that people who are self-focused and narcissistic are usually really unhappy, if not depressed? Sadly, I know this from experience. But have you also noticed that people who are generally others-focused and more selfless are usually very happy? That's not a coincidence. It's the way of Jesus in action. When we're down, one of the best things we can do is serve somebody else. It's the backdoor to joy. And it's always unlocked.' 

John Mark Comer, Garden City, p.279. 

JOY

'The thing no one ever tells you about joy is that it has very little real pleasure in it. And yet if it hadn't happended at all, at least once, how should we live?' 

Zadie Smith, 'Joy' in Feel Free, p.434. 

JOY

'Joy is connection.'
George Vaillant in Jennifer Senior, All Joy and No Fun, p.242. 

JOY IS A PHYSICAL SENSATION

'For I myself find that if, during a moment of intense aesthetic rapture, one tries to turn round and catch by introspection what one is actually feeling, one can never lay one's hand on anything but a physical sensation. In my case it is a kind of kick or flutter in the diaphragm.' 

CS Lewis, 'Transposition' in CS Lewis Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church, p.269. 

HAPPINESS VS. JOY

'Happiness comes when things are going our way, which makes it only a forerunner to the unhappiness that inevitably follows when things stop going our way, as in the end they will stop for all of us. Joy, on the other hand, does not come because something is happening or not happening but every once in a while rises up out of simply being alive, of being part of the terror as well as the fathomless riches of the world that God has made.'  

Frederick Buechner, Longing for Home, p.128. 

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

'Justification is one of the great joy factories of the Christian life. When there is no joy (cf. Gal 4:15), it is often a telltale sign that we have lost our gras[ on this doctrine. The suspicion that characterized our relationship with God before we knew him in Christ starts to creep back in and take over.' 

Rory Shiner, One Forever, p.48. 

JOY

'Joy is not gush. Joy is not mere jolly-ness. Joy is perfect acquiescence - acceptance, rest - in God's will, whatever comes. And that is so, only for the soul that delights in God.' 

Amy Carmichael in Kate Wharton, Single-Minded, p.80. 

JOY

'A beautiful face is at all times pleasing to the eye, but the especially when there is joy manifested in the countenance. Joy in the face puts a new beauty, and makes that which before was beautiful to be exceedingly beautiful. It puts a lustre and glory upon beauty; so does joy in the face, heart, and life of a Christian, cast a general splendour and glory upon him, and the ways of God wherein he walks.'

Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth, p.29.

JOY

‘God isn’t displeased when we enjoy a good meal, marital sex, a football game, a cozy fire, or a good book. He’s not up in Heaven frowning at us and saying, “Stop it – you should only find joy in me.” This would be foreign to God’s nature as our heavenly Father as it would be to mine as an earthly father if I gave my daughters a Christmas gift and started pouting because they enjoyed it too much. No, I gave the gift to bring joy to them and to me – if they didn’t take pleasure in it, I’d be disappointed. Their pleasure in my gift to them draws them closer to me. I am delighted that they enjoy the gift.’

Randy Alcorn, Heaven, p.177.

CHILDREN

'...that very sense of powerlessness is the main-spring of a child's joy. He just leaves it all to his mother, you see. Present, past, future - his whole life is caught up in one look, and that look is a smile.'

Georges Bernanos, The Diary of A Country Priest, p.19.