Pastor John, how much of joy in God is willed by the Christian, and how much of it is just given as a gift from God? And how do you balance that distinction between willing the joy and receiving joy as a gift from God? That's a great question, absolutely great question, because I think we err on both sides of this fence.

That is, we become willpower people, and we become passive waiting people, and there's no doubt that authentic joy cannot be immediately willed. In other words, if you're feeling rotten, you can't say, "Not a problem. I'll just decide to be happy. Boom, I'm happy." That doesn't happen. And people draw the inference from that that you don't ever try to will joy, but that's not true.

You should do the kinds of things you can do to put yourself in the way of joy. I think when Paul says, "Sow to the Spirit," I've tried to figure out for years, what does he mean, "Sow to the flesh and sow to the Spirit?" And I think sowing to the Spirit means taking steps to put yourself in the way of the Spirit's activity and pray.

So when the psalmist says, "Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your law," and then he prays, "Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love," clearly he is willing that something happen which isn't now happening. He doesn't see wonderful things in the Word of God.

He's asking God to show him. He doesn't feel satisfaction. He's asking God to give it, and in that sense he's willing to pursue the satisfaction. So there are remarkable things you can do with your brain to put out of your mind things that are self-defeating, put in your mind things that are joy-producing, but in the end, joy is a gift.

It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So I'm going to encourage everybody to realize how helpless we are to have true spiritual joy, and therefore to expect it to be a spontaneous work of the Spirit, that's one side, and I'm going to pursue everybody, do everything you can by way of using the means of grace in order to awaken, kindle, and quicken, and pursue that joy.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. If you have a question for Pastor John, please send it to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Please include your first name and your hometown in that email. You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper online at desiringgod.org.

I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.