You wake up early. You knock out your to-do list. You make plans, hit goals, stay connected, stay productive. On paper, everything’s fine—maybe even good. But somewhere underneath the noise and motion, there’s a dull ache. A quiet sense that something’s still… missing.
It’s not a crisis exactly. Just a lingering, low-grade emptiness. A feeling that even your faith—once vibrant, once central—has gone a little flat. You’re showing up, believing the right things, doing the work. But somehow, it’s not hitting the same.
That’s where Tauren Wells found himself—not in a place of rebellion or burnout, but in the middle of doing everything “right.” And it was there, in the rhythm of routines and responsibilities, that he started asking a deeper question: What if we’ve overlooked one of the most essential parts of the Christian life?
His debut book Joy Bomb isn’t a self-help manual or a feel-good pep talk. It’s a theological call to recover something sacred—something many of us have unknowingly left behind. Not because we’re doing life wrong, but because we’ve been missing what makes life full in the first place.
The idea hit Wells during a Bible-in-a-year reading plan. He had just gotten to Matthew 5.
“Nicky Gumbel was unpacking how the word ‘blessed’ in the Beatitudes actually means ‘happy,’” Wells says. “I’d heard that before, but I’d never let the implications really hit me. If Jesus begins the most important sermon in human history by talking about happiness, that says something. This isn’t a bonus. This is foundational.”
Still, joy isn’t something most people associate with church. Wells remembers growing up hearing, “God doesn’t care if you’re happy. He cares if you’re holy,” as if those two things can’t be true at the same time. But Scripture doesn’t pit happiness and holiness against each other. Psalm 16:11 says joy is found in God’s presence. Galatians names it as fruit of the Spirit.
“To say God doesn’t want us to be happy is to deny part of his character,” Wells says. “And you can’t know God fully while cutting yourself off from who he actually is.”
In Joy Bomb, Wells argues that the Beatitudes aren’t just a list of behaviors for believers. They’re a mirror of Jesus’ own character.
“When Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,’ he’s not just talking about us,” Wells explains. “He’s describing himself. He’s the one who emptied himself, who mourned, who showed mercy. Joy isn’t just something He gives. It’s who He is.”
But biblical joy doesn’t mean pretending life doesn’t hurt.
“In true joy, there’s no need to deny the reality of your pain,” Wells says. “Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who mourn.’ That’s permission to feel. You don’t have to fake your way through suffering. You don’t have to slap a smile on to prove you have faith.”
He dismantles the clichés—“faith it till you make it,” “faith over feelings.”
“Not in the Bible,” he says. “God gave us feelings. Emotions aren’t the enemy. They’re doorways into knowing his character more deeply.”
Wells points to therapist Chip Dodd, who teaches that there are no negative emotions—only negative ways to handle them.
“Jesus wept. God feels. If we’re created in His image, our emotions aren’t liabilities. They’re invitations.”
So what does joy actually look like in real life? For Wells, it’s simple: “Joy is the person of Jesus coming alive in our hearts.” It’s not circumstantial. It doesn’t hinge on promotions, relationships or how many likes you got on your last post. It’s internal, rooted in who God is—not what’s going on.
And it’s meant to impact more than just your mood.
“Joy changes every relationship,” he says. “Jesus is teaching us how to embody joy in a way that changes how we treat people.”
That includes how we navigate conflict, how we forgive and how we show up for others.
“People who know who they are in God don’t walk into a room thinking, ‘Here I am.’ They walk in thinking, ‘There you are.’ That’s joy in action.”
It’s a vision of the church that feels almost rebellious in 2025—a people known not for fear, burnout or outrage, but for joy. And that, Wells says, is exactly what the enemy wants to prevent.
“The joy of the Lord is our strength,” he says. “So if we’re joyless, we’re weak.”
Too often, he says, Christians are pouring their energy into fragile sources of satisfaction—job promotions, relationship validation, their kids’ achievements, their reputations.
“Joy is being siphoned into everything but Jesus,” Wells says. “And then we wonder why we’re tired.”
The solution isn’t to try harder. It’s to return to the source.
“I didn’t write Joy Bomb to come up with simply eight steps to feel better,” he says. “I wanted to point out eight ways Jesus revealed himself to us. And when we see him clearly, we find joy again.”
Wells isn’t just writing about joy. He’s choosing it—in the middle of parenting, pastoring, creating and carrying his own questions. It’s not a performance. It’s a discipline. A posture. A practice.
And maybe that’s the real invitation of Joy Bomb—to stop chasing peace in all the wrong places and start making space for the kind of presence that satisfies. Not because your life looks perfect. But because Jesus is already in it.
