Christian hedonism – bekahcubed

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This year, I have been concentrating on exercising my mind towards the things of God.

No doubt my longer-term readers have noticed the emphasis of this blog shifting from anecdotes to thinking and theology. Those who have seen my book lists have seen weightier books appearing more often on my lists–and have seen a greater emphasis on critical evaluation in my reviews. Those who know me personally have likely seen or heard some of my intellectual struggles of this past year as I’ve wrestled with the role of the miraculous gifts in today’s church, with what might appropriately induce someone to leave a church, with the role of Christians in government, with non-violence as a Christian virtue, and more.

Now, as I return to the classroom, teaching again, I still intend to exercise my mind towards the things of God–but to that I add one more goal.

I would like to stir up my passions towards God.

I want to incite within my soul such a thirst for God that I find the murky waters of this world unfulfilling. I should like to develop such a taste for God that I will turn aside from every trifle this world offers. I would like to desire God so deeply, so fully that the desire for Him drowns out every desire for any other person or thing. I should like for Him to become my consuming passion, my deepest longing, my forever quest.

I am reading John Piper’s Desiring God–and as I read, I am crying:
“Lord, awaken my hunger. Lord, awaken my thirst. Lord, awaken longing. Awaken my desire–for You.”

“I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.”
~John Piper, Desiring God

O Lord, I desire to find such superior satisfaction in You!

“…it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us…We are far too easily pleased.”
~C.S. Lewis, quoted in Desiring God

O Lord, may I not be easily pleased by the small joys this world offers.

“…This persistent and undeniable yearning for happiness was not to be suppressed, but to be glutted–on God!”
~John Piper, Desiring God

O that I may be glutted on You!

“God is glorified not only by His glory’s begin seen, but by its being rejoiced in.”
~Jonathon Edwards, quoted in Desiring God

May my life bring You glory as I rejoice in You.

“The pleasure Christian Hedonism seeks is the pleasure that is in God Himself. He is the end of our search, no the means to some further end.”
~John Piper, Desiring God

O, that I might delight in You, not as a means to my heart’s desire, but because You are my heart’s desire.

(This is a reflection on the foreword and introduction to John Piper’s Desiring God. For more reflections on Desiring God, see my notes here.)

To be human is to be a pleasure-seeker.

We are fond of thinking of the dissipated fellow partying all night, drunken, sleeping around, and experimenting with drugs as a pleasure-seeker. We are not likely to think of the sturdy fellow who goes to school, gets a job, and raises a family as a pleasure-seeker. Instead, we call him a level-headed chap. Then there are the philanthropists and volunteers. We call them altruistic. Certainly they are not pleasure-seekers. And finally, there is the missionary who travels to a different land to face certain death. He cannot be a pleasure-seeker, we say. We either call him crazy or a hero for his self-sacrifice.

Yet each of these is a pleasure-seeker.

Pleasure seeking does not distinguish one man from another, for pleasure seeking is a trait common to man. What separates one man from another is not that he seeks pleasure, but what he seeks pleasure in.

Furthermore, what separates one man from another is his relative success at not only seeking but finding pleasure.

The dissipated man is forever chasing a fleeting pleasure, a buzz that quickly fades. The steady man may have traded these “buzzes” for the pleasures of stability and comfort. The altruistic man has denied the buzz of the dissipated man–and perhaps even the stability and comforts of the stead man–for the pleasures of “doing the right thing” or the laud of other men.

All of these are pleasure-seekers, seeking pleasure in a variety of things. Each man trades some form of pleasure for another, depending on what he feels most likely to bring him long term pleasure. Some pleasures last longer than others. None of these last forever.

The Christian does the same thing. The difference is that while all these other pleasures are earthly and momentary, the Christian knows the source of true eternal pleasure.

The Chinese believers who face certain death as they seek a way into North Korea to share the gospel of Christ crucified and risen–they do so in pursuit of pleasure. They deem Christ the highest pleasure t be found–and are thus willing to forgo even fleshly life itself in order to chase after Him.

Crazy?

Only if God is not the eternal source of pleasure.

Heroes?

Perhaps.

Or maybe just the ultimate in pleasure-seekers.

God-seekers

(This is the beginning of my notes and reflections on Desiring God by John Piper. See other notes on the same topic by clicking the Desiring God tag.)