“It is something many people have not learned yet,” answered Brother Joyful; “but I will tell you the secret. I will tell you how I get God’s joy-machine to operate. A specified coin is required to operate these machines, but there are many different things that will work God’s machine. Sometimes one thing will do it, sometimes another, and sometimes it takes several things together. The first thing I try is obedience. Whole-hearted obedience to the Lord never fails to bring me a good supply of joy, but that is a price many people are not willing to pay. They would like to have the joy, but when it comes to obeying God and throwing their whole soul into that obedience, they draw back. Often they obey reluctantly, with more or less unwillingness in their hearts, or they want to do it just a little differently from God’s way. That kind of obedience never makes the joy-machine work. There are others who are willing to obey God, provided he will do so-and-so to suit them. Such people wait a long time for their joy. So long as the heart is closed up against God’s commands, you can count on God keeping a lock on the joy-machine. “Sometimes, and very often too, we have to drop some trust into the slot. If you are doubting God and questioning whether he means what he says or whether he will keep his promises, the machine will not work. When I want a feast of joy, I make sure that I am obeying God, and then I tell him that I believe him, that I trust myself and my all completely into his hands, and that I feel perfectly safe in doing so; that I believe his eye is over me and his everlasting arms are beneath me and that he will work out everything for my good and keep me in whatever circumstances I am placed. That makes the joy-machine work. Often it brings ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory.’ “Of course, there is something else that goes with obedience and trust, and that is really a part of them. It is submission. Unless our hearts say, ‘Thy will be done,’ the joy-bells will not ring much. If we get any joy, it will be only a sort of human enthusiasm. I say the heart must say this. It is not enough for the mouth to say it; the heart must not say it reluctantly nor hesitatingly, for the joy will not come until the heart submits unreservedly. “Praise is another thing that makes the machine work; that is, the kind of praise that comes from the depths of the heart—the kind that comes spontaneously from a deep appreciation of God’s goodness and mercy. Only those who obey God have this kind. We may shout God’s praise loud enough to be heard two blocks away; but if we are not obeying him, he knows it is a pretense, and it will not work the machine. One may be ever so enthusiastic, and seem to be very happy, but if he is not obeying God, what he gets does not come out of God’s joy-machine. Praise amounts to much when there is obedience back of it, but is nothing but noise when it is otherwise.