Dear Diary,

I set out that early morning, so many years ago, convinced that by the end of my hour bike ride, I would have prayed THE prayer. How hard could it possibly be to pray a one sentence prayer, but I still hadn’t uttered a word when that hour was done. I tried again the next morning. Day after day, I tried. No luck. I felt like a wrung dishrag whose courage had been squeezed out. I rode my bike for miles and miles that summer. I rode it through the rain. I rode it under blazing sun. I rode it up steep inclines that broke me half way up. I rode my bike along the flats and watched the sun set along the distant horizon. Still, I couldn’t say the words. And then one day I said them: “O Lord Jesus, do whatever you must to draw me closer to you.”

That’s the hardest prayer I’ve ever had to pray in my life. Why? Because I had to decide whether to cherish the illusion of my relative self-reliance and comfort or brave whatever I must to get closer to the Lord where Joy is found. It is a prayer of vulnerability and vulnerability is a key initial step toward finding joy.

Unfortunately, I run from vulnerability even though I know that my richest fellowship with the Lord and my deepest sense of joy have unquestionably come when I was utterly broken and helpless. Suffering left me vulnerable and that vulnerability opened me to the possibility of more pain, but also more grace. Grace and joy seem to me to be inseparable. Joy grows, therefore, in proportion to my vulnerability.

I’m under the delusion that suffering and joy are antithetical, but God’s purpose for suffering is to create fat souls (Jeremiah 29:11).

As Matthew 5:3-4 so clearly promises, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” You cannot be comforted if you don’t mourn and you can’t mourn if you’re always running from pain.

Evangelical Christians, more than most religious people, are adept at avoiding negative emotions. We reason that we should be happy, not sad, because we know that God is in control. So we stigmatize fear, anger, and depression because God is love, but a brief glance at our spiritual fathers and mothers shows a chronicle of people strapped to sorrow. The Psalmist alone wrote more songs of mourning and crying out than hymns of joy. Most of the psalms are songs of bewilderment, doubt, and heartache. I find that fact a great comfort.

Solace is found in verses like Psalm 34:15 which says, “They eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.” Or Psalm 84: “Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Weeping, they make it a spring.”

The problem is this: I want joy without vulnerability and without pain, but God seems intent on giving his saints joy by means of tribulation. The solution to the problem? Practices that foster vulnerability and dependency.

Here are just some ideas I want to pursue more diligently:

• Count to a hundred before rushing to alleviate pain: my first impulse is to fix the problem instead of sitting in my suffering and listening for what God might be saying. Don’t be opposed to fixing the problem, but make sure it’s not the first impulse.
• Remember the simple means of grace which God has ordained: Scripture reading, prayer, communion, fasting, and corporate worship. They’re not exciting, but God has promised that they are effective and all of them can be done during times of pain.
• Say prayers of dependence: This one, for example is a prayer that I have said ever since my health collapse and want to continue praying. It reminds me of some of those key lessons I learned during those desperate days: “Speak, therefore, Lord, for your servant listens. You have the words of eternal life. Speak to me for the comfort of my soul and for the amendment of my life, for your praise, your glory, and your everlasting honor” (The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis).

Joy is not antithetical to suffering, so claim the joy promised in and through suffering by praying, “O Lord, do whatever you must to draw me closer to yourself.” Pray the prayer each morning. At night, while climbing into bed, pray this prayer by Thomas A Kempis: “If you wish me to be in darkness, I shall bless you. And if you wish me to be in light, again I shall bless you. If you stoop down to comfort me, I shall bless you, and if you wish me to be afflicted, I shall bless you forever.”

Here is a final self-reminder. Risk is central to finding Joy in suffering. Risk your comfort, all your pseudo self-reliance, all your posturing and manuevering, all your time honored practices of selfish ambition cloaked in a holy cause.

O Lord, do whatever you must. Smash my small glass castle and leave me vulnerable under the starry sky, vulnerable enough for joy.

[painting by Stanislaw Debicki, 1887]

Dear Diary,

“Like the poets who have learned to sit still and sense the gratuitous unfolding of gift around them, I will wait on the Lord who, alone, is Joy”

Those were the final words of my last diary entry.

So much easier said than done.

Life barrels on relentlessly and I often feel the jarring consequences of being stuck inside the barrel. Of course, even when the barrel of life stops and I’m given the opportunity to be still, I feel the itch to be up and doing. I’m an accomplishment addict living in a world full to the brim with opportunities to keep my addiction strong. Pushers and peddlers at my shoulder, on the television, whispering from the magical world of the web, and haunting the church pew.

Perhaps the Psalmist felt similar urges and so he wrote these self-reminders: “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret” (Psalm 37:7) and “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). A friend of mine repeats Psalm 46:10 to herself this way: “Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know. Be still. Be.”

Jim Eliot, that famous martyr of the Gospel, once wrote, “I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds.” Well, guess what? I don’t need literal noise, hurry, and crowds. I have plenty of all three swirling around between my ears.

Naomi’s advice to Ruth regarding her kinsman-redeemer, Boaz, echoes God’s advice for me while I wait on Christ who is my kinsman-redeemer: “Sit still until you learn how the matter will turn out because your kinsman-redeemer will not be idle until he performs his job” (Ruth 3:18).

Christ is in the joy-filled business of proving himself adequate.

I fret. He performs.

Maybe it’s time to stand still at the shore of my personal Red Sea and watch the salvation of the Lord (Exodus 14:13-14). Maybe it’s time to let Jesus rebuke my internal storms, “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:39). Maybe it’s time to sit at the feet of The Great Poet, himself, that lavish assailant of my humdrum spirituality, The Holy Spirit, and absorb the overflow of his joy (Galatians 5:22-24). Surely the closer my proximity to him, the more his joy will splash onto me.

Maybe it’s time to lay my burdens down at the feet of Jesus, to be content with what I have for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Come Holy Spirit, teach me to sit.

Teach me to be still and know that you are God. To be still and know. To be still. To be. Teach me to be still and sense the gratuitous unfolding of You.

[Painting by Dr. Lydia Kozenitzky]

Dear Diary,

The truth is that this first week dedicated to finding joy was characterized, ironically, by a remarkable lack of it. I was impatient, restless, and progressively drained. When I noticed joy was gone, I grew more impatient, restless, and drained. Even I can see the trend.

Then I noticed how much of my emotional state depends on my circumstances. I noticed, for example, how much of my day is filled with activity that I’d rather not do and which I blamed for my restless heart: cleaning dishes, folding laundry, grading papers, etc. And then there was the realization that my spiritual state depends too much on the relational state of my children. When they are in harmony, I’m happy. When they bicker, I’m short-tempered. All in all, the skittish stag named Joy spent most of the week in the tall timber.

So I begin this hunt by admitting that I’m afraid of failing since it appears that I’m failing right out of the starting gate. I sit in my frustration and restlessness. I sit in my anger. I wonder how a broken man like myself is going to find joy.

Then I remember Elizabeth Eliot who, when faced with deep fears, was famous for simplifying everything down to one command: do the next thing. What is the first thing to do?

Start simple.

Stop trying to drum up a feeling.

Do something.

Look up the word.

So I unearthed my Oxford English Dictionary and read: “Joy is a vivid emotion of pleasure arising from a sense of well-being or satisfaction; exultation of spirit; gladness, delight.”

The definition links joy with satisfaction or well-being. Perhaps the word “contentment” has an important, but often neglected, roll to play when it comes to joy.

I have been remarkably discontent this week.
Perhaps there is a link between my lack of joy and my lack of contentment.

I spend so much effort trying to “be joyful” and when I fail, or circumstances around me seem to impede my joy, I get deeply frustrated. Milk gets spilled. A tire goes flat. Everything unravels and that elusive stag slips further and further into the woods.

Maybe a life of contentment, regardless of circumstances, is the way to find joy.

I want joy. I want it badly, but it never seems to stick.

What if I can only have joy as a byproduct of having contentment? Can I pursue contentment this week? If so, will joy return?

Those who are thankful are often the most content people I know. If I imitate them this week, giving thanks “in all circumstances” (I Thess. 5:18), then perhaps I will once again wake up to see that elusive stag standing in my yard. I will be still. I will not look him in the eye lest I spook him. I will go on being thankful in that moment.

I want to be like the poets, learning to sit still and sense the gratuitous unfolding of gift around me. That is waiting on the Lord who, alone, is Joy.