Joy

Doug Wilson on the importance of laughter and joy in the Christian life. He says: "This discipline of joy and Christian laughter is essential, and it must come from comprehending the culmination of God's kindness to us in the resurrection of Christ...It is easy for modern Christians to think of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli standing around a cauldron at the beginning of some reformation Macbeth, coming up with the doctrines of predestination and depravity. The lightening flashes, the murky brew belches a loathesome smell, and one can readily tell by the pricking of his thumbs that it is time to try to find another church. These people here believe harsh and horrible things. But rightly understood, to use Tyndale's phrase, the doctrine is really the soft rain of grace after the thunder of the law. In a parched land, the goodness of God's salvation falls wonderfully, and predestination is simply a glorious redemption given from the hand of the Lord. It is not surprising that the effect it has on men who understand it is that of a redeemed gut chuckle. As C. S. Lewis pointed out, for men like Tyndale, 'amid all [his] severities there is something like laughter, that laughter which he speaks of as coming from the low bottom of the heart.' This is a laughter which comes naturally- - the fruit of the grace of God is joy and gladness and laughter." -Doug Wilson, 'The Font of Laughter', 'Angels in the Architecture',

"To delight in the good of all the universe, but not to delight in God, is like being glad that a candle is lit, but being indifferent to the rising sun. Apart from embracing God as our chief delight, we are (quite literally) infinitely parochial." -John Piper