The Enjoyment of God

I was reading a John Piper blog on the idea of a single passion. It has been burning in my mind for weeks now, the unity of mind and heart and having an undivided soul being the ultimate aim of Christianity. Much of my conversation lately has been focused around suffering, whether it be in my life or talking to those around me. And the constant answer is, "We don't know the answer, but God will be glorified." The Glory of God is such a strange idea. As humans we think that God's aim in seeking His glory is self-centered, and he is in heaven constantly demanding praise. When C.S. Lewis was still an atheist, he described this longing for praise as an old lady wandering the streets demanding compliments from people. After being saved, he wrote this in Reflections on the Psalms:

"But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise...

The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game...My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."

When the mind is passionate about something, the heart enjoys it and the natural response is PRAISE. Praise is most assuredly glorification, and I think the idea is that our minds can understand God, we can think on him and constantly talk about his glory...but the fullness of our glorification of Him comes when our hearts take pleasure in him. So our hearts and minds come together in fullness, in unity, undivided, solely for the utmost glory of God. Essentially, Lewis says, denying the Praise of God is merely not realizing that he is infinitely valuable, that he is of supreme worth. If we recognize God as better than life than our glorification of him comes from our enjoyment of him. Knowing that he is better than sex, he is better than food, he is better than drugs, he is better than human love, he is better than all things! This type of life makes God look great. That is why the Christian is called to "die daily," denying the self what we want most (sex, food, drugs, fun, pleasure) and effectively "choosing" God as greater than all of those things will glorify him most. And what happens in those places is absolutely inexplicable. Beyond words, one can only describe it as complete satisfaction and pleasure- knowing that God is all satisfying, completely sufficient, and more than we could ever need. Our self denial leads to a place where God is ultimate in our lives, and the joy of that is he fulfills. He sets us free from momentary pleasure and gives us an eternal pleasure. Our needs are met by him and we move from suffering to delight because of his ability to pleasure our souls.

Piper puts it this way- God is glorified not only in being seen (his revealed glory) but also in being rejoiced in. When people who see God see it for what it really is, God is glorified. But he is more glorified when those who see it for what it really is rejoice in it! The completion of that person's soul is glorifying God. It is not only mind but heart that is clinging to God, and those two things make up the fullness of the soul.

If as Christians we value this life, it will show. We will have great fear, when things go awry we will cry out in anger and ask why us? But if we value God above all, we know that no matter what happens in this life in the end we get God. When someone takes our stomach away, or our husband dies, or we lose our house- we can know that God is our ultimate pleasure and those things cannot touch it! That is why denying ourselves for this lifetime is a small task- why some will never marry and be ok with that, while some will have cancer and rejoice in that, and while some will be burned alive and thank God for the opportunity to enter into the kingdom of Heaven. Oh how I long for this undivided passion in my life! God give me one desire, and that is to glorify you by enjoying your love, promises, presence, and glory in my life!

"ONE thing that I ask and ALL that I seek is to dwell in the house of the LORD forever..."