Someone recently wrote Leadership, “When I was young, I was filled with energy and joy, but now I have to work on stimulating them both.”
In ministry, years and joy can have an inverse relationship. For most pastors, serving God will always be more joy than sacrifice. But the weekly-ness of preaching, the seeming daily-ness of criticism, the slowness of the change we see in people—can combine over time to diminish a brightly burning flame.
Two Christian leaders who have burned brighter and hotter as they have aged are Ben Patterson and Zig Ziglar.
- Ben is dean of the chapel at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and author of Waiting: Finding Hope When God Seems Silent and Serving God: The Grand Essentials of Work & Worship (both InterVarsity). He has served Presbyterian churches in California and New Jersey.
- For more than 30 years, Zig has been a popular motivational speaker whose books and products have sold in the millions. His books include Confessions of a Happy Christian (Pelican) and, most recently, Success for Dummies (IDG Books Worldwide).
Leadership editors Dave Goetz and Craig Brian Larson sequestered Ben and Zig in Chicago to see what a hopelessly Reformed pastor and an incurable optimist might say about genuine joy.
Is loss of energy and joy inevitable as the years go by in ministry?
Zig Ziglar: Our natural inclination is to say, “I just don’t have the energy I used to have,” but that only adds fuel to the problem. Our belief determines our behavior. According to research, roughly 50 percent of us are born as optimists, and 50 percent are born as pessimists. The good news is research conclusively shows that you can change from pessimism to optimism.
Is joy akin to optimism?
Ziglar: I’m a born optimist; I’d take my last two dollars and buy a money belt with it. But there’s a big difference between the joy of optimism and the joy that comes with knowing you’re in God’s will, that he has already won this deal called life. All I’ve got to do is collect. It’s not what I do, it’s what Christ did. Ben Patterson: Joy probably looks a little different on Zig’s face than somebody else’s. Zig, you have a confidence that communicates, “I can handle it, I’m not going to go under.” You expect you will succeed. But people in my family, who struggle with depression, are predisposed to being overwhelmed more quickly than someone who is more upbeat. A lot of it is physiological. If I had a choice, though, I would want to be wired like Zig. Much of how we experience joy relates to gifts God has given us, the way we’re put together, the way we were raised. Ziglar: Incidentally, I was optimistic and positive at age 45, when I was broke and in debt. Unless you’ve struggled for years, you don’t really appreciate what salvation means. When the reality that everything I’d done in the past was in the past hit me full force, that I now could call on the Creator of the universe, I realized that all I’ve got to worry about is doing the best I can today.
Was there a moment when you discovered the meaning of genuine joy?
Patterson: I can tell you when I became a Christian, and I can tell you when I began to “get it” about joy. I’m sorry to say my discovery about joy was only about six years ago. I didn’t want to go back to work after vacation. I was overwhelmed with the problems in the church and the struggles in our family. But I was going to be obedient to God. I gritted my teeth, pulled out of Minneapolis, and headed east to New Jersey. I gritted my teeth for about two weeks. One night in a prayer meeting, the Lord spoke to me: “I don’t need you to serve me this way. If you can’t do this joyfully, why don’t you get a real job? You can choose to be joyful about this.” That night the meaning of joy became so plain to me: while joy is a gift, it is also something I need to choose. Grace, gratitude, and joy—all have the same Greek root, which is a word about health and well being. About this time, I came under the influence of the Heidelberg Catechism, which says I need to know what a sinner I am, what God has done to give me his grace, and then how to say thank you.
There’s a big difference between the joy of optimism and the joy that comes with knowing you’re in God’s will. —Zig Ziglar
Fundamental to being unjoyful is being ungrateful. Joy is what you feel when you’re thankful. Ziglar: Our oldest daughter died on May 13, 1995. The Bible tells us to rejoice always. How do you rejoice under those circum-stances? We’re still weeping. However, we can rejoice in the assurance that we know where she is and that we loved her and provided her the best medical care available. Psalm 139:16 says God set her death date from the foundation of the earth. In weeping we can still have joy, but joy is a condition you’re in because of a decision you made.
What does joy feel like in times of weeping?
Ziglar: Like it’s the only thing in life worth having. Her death is the most difficult thing I’ve experienced, and yet I’ve felt God’s presence so strongly since then. It has brought me closer to the Lord than anything since my salvation. Patterson: Joy is the subjective experience of gratitude, but beneath that is the presence of God. Psalm 16 says, “You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Teilhard de Chardin, the French theologian, said that joy is an infallible proof of the presence of God. To be in the presence of God is to be in the presence of grace and mercy. Joy is an acute and poignant sense that God is present.
Is joy felt most profoundly in suffering?
Patterson: Hebrews 12:2 says, “Who for the joy set before him endured the cross.” I don’t think joy was just a dangling carrot. There had to be a sense of joy, even amid the anguish. Ziglar: The longest 24 hours of my life were those after my daughter’s death. When making the funeral arrangements with her husband and his parents, I had to listen to a salesman who was an incessant talker and who told us 30 times he wasn’t a salesman. Twice while we were making decisions about her casket and burial, I had to leave the room; I simply couldn’t handle him. The night before I had hallucinated. Half asleep, half awake, I kept thinking my daughter was wondering when her daddy was going to come get her. The next morning I took a walk and was praying and crying the whole way. When I returned, the Lord spoke in such a distinct way: “She’s fine. She’s with me. And you’re going to be fine, too. I’m all you need. You just keep walking. Keep talking. Keep praying. Keep crying.” I got to bed about eleven that night but couldn’t sleep. I got up, tried to pray, but still couldn’t sleep. We had a thunderstorm that night, and at 3 a.m. I got up and went downstairs and put in a Bill Gaither gospel video. I didn’t watch the video, but I listened to it. I laid on the floor and listened to Vestal Goodman singing spirituals. In a few minutes, I was asleep and slept soundly for two hours. I felt such a strong presence of the Lord in song. I felt a great peace. When I awoke, I went upstairs and slept another two hours. Patterson: I’m really touched by what you said. (Pause) Not long after deciding to be grateful, I was sitting in church one evening. As the choir was singing a beautiful piece, I felt, as C. S. Lewis describes, the stab of joy. I sensed God’s presence. My first thought was, Lord, that is worth anything in the world. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do, if I just get a look at your face once in a while. For all I knew, I was going to be serving that church, a job I didn’t like, for a long time. That four-year period was about coming to the place where I could say to God, “To see your face is so worthwhile that nothing in this life is bad enough to outweigh your presence.”
Zig, what fuels your energy?
Ziglar: I feel as called to do what I do as any preacher feels called to preach. I’m called to encourage people and to witness effectively in the business community. God hasn’t promised me five more minutes, but, at 71, I honestly believe I’m at least ten, maybe fifteen, years away from hitting my peak. I believe my career is in front of me, though if God decides my life is over today, I’m ready. My creativity today is substantially better than it was 25 years ago. My energy level today is higher than when I was 45. Though I’ve exercised for a long time, about six weeks ago I joined a gym for the first time and asked a personal trainer to teach me stretching and strength exercises. I’m astonished at how much stronger I am today than I was six weeks ago. Today I’m also better organized than I was 25 years ago. I schedule exercise time, eat sensibly, and I normally get about seven-and-a-half hours of sleep. My cholesterol level is 156, my blood pressure is 122/69, and my resting heart rate is 51. And I don’t worry.
With those numbers, you’ll be around a long time!
Ziglar: Psalm 139:16 takes care of that, but I do know this: I want to be like old Caleb. When he was 85, he said, “Lord, give me the mountain top. I’ll clean those suckers out of there”—a direct quote from the King James. (Laughter) I am just happy and grateful for what I do.
What type of joy should come from our work?
Patterson: I don’t believe as some that we should only work to live. I live to work, with this qualifier: God made me to be productive, to do something creative, so I can make a difference in the world. And it’s important to have chosen work that matters. Zig, had you decided to deal blackjack in Las Vegas, you might not be singing the same tune. You might still be successful, but I don’t think you’d feel the same about blackjack as you do about your work. I’ve co-opted a phrase from Joseph Campbell, who talked about “following your joy.” He means that phrase in a different sense than I, but I think God has put in every person what he or she is supposed to be doing, and that is very close to what gives us the deepest satisfaction and joy. I tell college students, “Stay close to Jesus and listen to your joy, and you won’t get too far off the mark.” I can lose my joy in what God has called me to do if I don’t remember how good it is to be doing it.
How does recognizing the good in something inspire joy?
Patterson: God looked at everything he made and said, “It is good.” When I can say that, I’m looking at the world through God’s eyes again. When I can look at a bowl of homemade salsa and say, “It is good”—that brings me into a kind of fellowship with the Lord. I was sitting around with my family last night at our house. My three sons, daughter, wife and I were all there eating fajitas. I looked around and could only say, “This is good. It doesn’t get much better than this.” That is a species of joy, a shaft of light, as C. S. Lewis said, that comes down in ordinary circumstances and is meant to point us to the real source, which is God. Ziglar: When you verbalize your joy, you also strengthen it. Joel 3:10 says, “Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ ” Let us all say, “I am joyful.” Patterson: Not to verbalize it is to abort the joy. But it is like manna: it will go sour if you try to hold on to it. It’s just that day’s blessing. You’ve got to take it and wait for the next one.
What is the difference between infectious enthusiasm and chirpy cheerleading, which can turn people off?
Ziglar: Enthusiasm is an outward expression of an inner feeling. It’s generally based on a genuine reason for feeling that way. It’s also unselfish in nature. On the other hand, cheerleading frequently is done to impress people or to manipulate them. If you’re cheerleading your troops to give their best while knowing they’re going to be downsized the day after tomorrow, that’s deceitful. Some people may be cheerleading simply to jump-start themselves. There’s an old saying: If you act enthusiastic, you’ll be enthusiastic. That’s true in organized sports. We may not feel like going out for practice, but the coach will force us off the team if we don’t. So we halfheartedly go to practice. Five minutes later the adrenalin is flowing, the dopamine and epinephrine are hopping around in our brain. We begin to think, Man, I like this!
Joy is the capacity to be moved. We can’t have joy until we’re willing to let ourselves be moved —Ben Patterson
Can I be authentically enthusiastic even if I’m not of the optimistic 50 percent?
Ziglar: Absolutely. I met a lady from Birmingham who hated her job. She asked me to help her. I said, “Let’s get out a sheet of paper and list all the things you do like about your job.” “That will be easy. I don’t like anything about it.” I said, “Do they pay you for working there?” “Why, of course.” “And you don’t like to be paid.” “Oh, yes I do,” she said. “Then that’s one thing you like about your job, isn’t it?” She said, “Well, yeah.” In ten minutes, she put down 22 things she liked about her job. I said, “When you get home tonight, get in front of the mirror, look yourself right in the eye, and say, ‘I love my job because they pay me. I love my job because they pay me above average for working there. I love my job because I have a three-week vacation.’ Repeat it over and over and over. Always say, ‘I love my job because … ‘ Do it every morning and every night for 30 days.” I said, “You’ll need to carry the list with you because by the second day you will have discovered other things you like about your job.” Six weeks later I was back in Birmingham doing a follow-up sales seminar and there she sat on the front row. “How are you doing?” I asked. She grinned so wide she could have eaten a banana sideways. She said, “Mr. Ziglar, I’m doing wonderfully well. You can’t believe how much those people down there have changed.” Enthusiasm entered the picture when she accepted responsibility—”I can do something about this.” She changed from being a fault-finder to a good-finder. Patterson: I see that as a great example of teaching someone how to say thank you. The basic features of joy are the same—a deep sense of “It’s okay. We’re taken care of.” A Christian who is depressed, though, may have more to overcome than a nonbeliever who is depressed. Christians think, If I know the Lord, if my sins are forgiven, then why do I still feel bad? To be depressed is a heavy burden to carry, and it becomes intolerable if you say to yourself, “Not only am I depressed, but I’m screwed up; I’ve somehow missed what the gospel is about.” The issue of medication aside (which is often needed), I think that joy for those not predisposed toward optimism still comes down to the rigorous discipline of giving thanks. My continual prayer for one person in my family is for him to practice gratitude even when he doesn’t feel it. He told me that has made a big difference.
Other than personality or physiological factors, what blocks our desire to be grateful?
Patterson: Last semester was the hardest for me since I came to the college. Because of some controversy on campus, I was growing hostile and negative. I got hammered so hard I started thinking my job was about getting beat up. It took my getting away for a couple of days to remember I love my job. For me, not letting my circumstances steal my joy means making a conscious choice to return to the goodness of God and not to let the darkness control life. That’s not to ignore what’s bad or evil. It’s simply a stubborn refusal to let the accusatory voice define the situation, but to return always to the grace of God. Even when we receive something good, Satan, the accuser will come and say, “You don’t deserve that.” Ziglar: In Confessions of a Happy Christian, I put a “gratitude list” at the end of each chapter. I reminded readers that the more you express gratitude for what you have the more things you will have to express gratitude for. Grateful people are happy people. They’re achievers. They have friends. Patterson: Sometimes, though, I’m afraid of joy, and that fear is often embodied in the restraint with which I worship God. Perhaps that is an index of our discomfort with joy. To be joyful, you’ve got to be capable of abandoning yourself to something. The most significant decision to affect my joy is allowing myself to worship God, letting go and letting my body get involved in worship. There’s a direct connection between expressive worship and capacity for joy. When I was in New Jersey, a black pastor friend invited me to preach at his church. The place was rocking. I was up front on the platform clapping my hands when Rod leaned over to me and said, “You know why those people are all smiling at you, don’t you?” I said no. “They’re laughing ’cause you don’t know how to move.” There’s an ecstatic dimension of joy, which is to let yourself be moved. The word ecstasy means “to be moved out of your place.” Joy is the capacity to be moved, to be shifted, to be taken out of something. I want to be able to move, in a literal sense. I don’t think we can have joy until we’re willing to let ourselves be moved.
What’s at the root of your fear of joy?
Patterson: There’s a great line in the resurrection story of Luke where the disciples didn’t believe “for joy.” The disciples didn’t believe their own eyes. I take that phrase to mean that while the possibility of Christ’s resurrection being true was so incredible, the fear that it wasn’t true was too scary for them. For me, the fear of joy finally comes down to my being in control. I think, If I just give myself completely over to God, what if he drops me? He might not keep his promises. Every major failure in my life can be traced back to my taking matters into my own hands.
What would you say to somebody who says, “I want more joy in my life, but I realize I’m a very angry person”?
Patterson: I think you’ve got to repent. Anger is a joy killer. We simply cannot be grateful and angry, or joyful and angry. The temptation of anger is it makes you feel strong when you feel weak. It’s like alcohol, which gives you a false sense of strength. I’ve got a Ph.D. in anger. On both sides of my family, never an angry thought is left unexpressed, and we’re all pugilists. When in seminary, I went into counseling because I was so angry. But I became only more angry, because therapy told me I had a right to be angry. When I served that church in New Jersey many years later, I discovered I was living in a place where everybody is angry; that culture was a mirror to me. Of course, there’s more to working through anger than repentance, but I don’t know if you will work through it without repenting. I have no good reason to be persistently angry. Ziglar: I often tell my audience, “Now this won’t get you out of clinical depression, but if you’re down in the dumps or upset, the first thing to do is write down what you’re upset about. Second, ask yourself, ‘How long do I want to stay there?’ “Third, put a deadline on your being down in the dumps, like maybe until three o’clock this afternoon. Then if somebody says, ‘How are you doing?’ say, ‘Well, after three o’clock I’ll be doing fine.’ ” Then I role play and say, “What’s going to happen at three o’clock?” “I’m going to be up and at ’em, and I’ll be excited.” “Well, now wait a minute. If you’re going to be excited at three o’clock, why not be excited now?” “No. I’m not going to give up my anger or my depression. I worked hard for it. I deserve it. I’m going to enjoy this misery until three o’clock. Then at three o’clock I’m going to feel fine.” The ridiculousness of our anger becomes obvious.
Dr. Gardner Taylor, former pastor of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, once said that as we age, the illusion of permanence lifts and the true, transitory nature of this life is revealed. Does joy increase with the lifting of that veil?
Patterson: I’m rereading Paul’s epistles and can’t believe what he writes about while on death row. It’s the classic picture of Paul being flogged severely, in stocks and in prison, yet singing. He writes a letter back to the church in Philippi about joy. Go figure. He says, “I’m like a drink offering. I’ve run the race. I’ve fought the good fight. I finished the course. Now there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” He has this tremendous sense of “I’m heading for the finish line.” That’s becoming my experience. I’m a lot younger than Zig, but at 55, everything for me is getting sharper, getting clearer.
What becomes clearer?
Patterson: That everything that matters has been given to me already. As the veil of permanence lifts, there’s more oxygen to the flame.
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
