Daniel Denk

Note: This article is adapted from Denk’s book An Invitation to Joy: The Divine Journey to Human Flourishing, published in April 2023. My journey with joy began when my oldest daughter was visiting—my Reformed charismatic daughter, my missionary midwife daughter who delivers babies for fun. She is one of the gentlest people I know. As we sat around the breakfast table, just the two of us, she said, “Dad, you seem to have lost some of your joy lately.” It was an understatement.

In a world full of suffering, the declaration that God wants us to be joyful can sound tone-deaf at best or hypocritical at worst. In An Invitation to Joy, Daniel J. Denk invites readers to cast off hopelessness and rediscover joy. Yet, as Denk reminds us, “we don’t find joy by pursuing joy; we find it by pursuing something else,” namely, the kingdom of God. This joy is not naive optimism but a profound sense of purpose and peace.