Champagne for the Soul: Celebrating God's Gift of Joy
Mike Mason
WaterBrook,
208 pages, $14.99

Can a self-confessed chronic melancholic find joy? Mike Mason (The Mystery of Marriage) embarked on a 90-day experiment to find out. In this collection of 90 short essays on the art of joy, he shares the happy results. "What I wanted was not just a weather change but a climate change," he writes. His goal: to demystify joy, to make it common fare for Christians, and for them to grow more joyful with every page.

Mason invites readers to listen for the voice of joy and to find it as a response to God's presence. Even in times of unhappiness, Mason learns that "great revelation may lie hidden in uncertainty, exhaustion, despair." He also writes about the joy found in waiting, in eschewing prejudice, and in trying new things.

As he lives out his experiment, Mason discovers the power of paying attention to the ordinary. When looking at life "with the eyes of joy, between here and the mailbox I'll find a hundred reasons to celebrate the fact that I live already in the kingdom of God." His newfound happiness is contagious.

Champagne for the Soul is available at Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

In December, Mason wrote about his 90-day "experiment in joy" for Christianity Today.

For book reviews, see CT'sbook archive.