Photography by Jodi: Fremont – a love for this place…

“In this book, when I talk about the joy of God, I’m not talking about an emotion. I mean the state of flourishing in mind, heart, and life that Christians experience by the Holy Spirit . The joy of God makes us happier, but also wiser, humbler, more patient, and so forth. The joy of God is all the fruits of the Spirit.

The joy of God—this Spirit-powered flourishing of human beings—can be experienced in a secondhand way by those who don’t have it themselves. It can be tasted. That’s what happened to me when I sang those Christmas carols.

I got little tastes of the joy of God without getting God himself. I was washed for a moment by the spray from the breaking wave, without actually going into the ocean—without even knowing the ocean was there.