I found this a really thought-provoking book on what it means to pursue joy in God even when our desire feels weak or absent. This is a great read about faith, spiritual discipline and joy and how it all intertwines with each other to bring God the ultimate glory.

Pastor John writes about ‘the fight for joy’, which is such an important battle in our spiritual lives. I have learnt that the desire for God (and thus, the obtaining of joy) can be fought for, cultivated and prayed toward even in seasons where it doesn’t feel natural.

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. This is the main theme the book is written around.

If God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him, and our role as Christians is to glorify God, shouldn’t our life’s goal then be to seek to be as satisfied in Him as possible? This is much easier said than done, unfortunately, because inevitably our flesh longs for other satisfactions and blessings in order to be ‘joyful’. This is why we need to ‘fight’ for joy, to actively draw our attention to the greatest and most beautiful joy of all – knowing God.

Pastor John also emphasizes that the ‘fight for joy’ itself is a gift of God, and He will enable us to fight, that we may say with the apostle Paul that “It was not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Our joy in Him will be greater because we see Him as the one who gives both the joy and the strength to fight for it.

One of my biggest takeaways from this book is the ‘IOUS’ acronym that Pastor John teaches to help guide our prayers over the Word in our ‘fight for joy’. I find this especially helpful to pray before starting my morning devotions, when the temptations and comforts of the world seem more attractive to the flesh.

I: Incline my heart to your testimonies and not toward selfish gain (Psalm 119:36). We ask God to take our hearts which are more inclined to the warmth of bed or the calling of breakfast, and change that inclination. We are asking that He creates desires that are not there.

O: Open my eyes to see wonderful things according to Your law (Psalm 119:18). When we read the Bible and our hardened hearts see nothing wonderful and the reading of it doesn’t produce joy, we cry to God to open the eyes of our hearts to be able to see what the Bible says about Him as wonderful.

U: Unite my heart to fear your name and walk in Your truth  (Psalm 86:11). Our hearts are so fragmented; parts of it are inclined towards God and the other parts are not. We can ask God to unite our hearts so that we can joyfully fear His name with no hesitation or doubt.

S: Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days (Psalm 90:14). The outcome we are hoping for in our Bible reading is so that our satisfaction comes from the Lord. Only God can answer that prayer and remove our worldly satisfaction.

As Pastor John writes, “God is supremely glorious and supremely valuable. Therefore He is worth the fight.” , may our prayer be like King David in Psalm 63:

“O God, you are my God;
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.”

But what happens when the darkness does not lift? Pastor John writes that we should ‘resolve to spend most of your time in thanksgiving and praising God. If you cannot do it with the joy that you should, yet do it as you can. Thanksgiving stirs up thankfulness in the heart.’

When the going is tough and it is difficult to ‘fight for joy’ in the midst of circumstances, may the Holy Spirit prompt us to place our joy in the ultimate joy-giver, that our joy may be made full and He may get all the glory.

“Then I will go the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy.”

Psalm 43:3