Of Joy and Satisfaction

I just started a book this afternoon by John Piper entitled, When I Don't Desire God: how to fight for joy. The first six pages have been really good! The first chapter introduces a doctrine called Christian Hedonism, which Piper describes as an extremely liberating yet devastating principle. The doctrine states that God is most glorified in the soul that finds deepest satisfaction in Him. Wow! That liberates us to find joy in God. However, this can also be devastating when we come to the realization that remaining sin causes complete satisfaction in God to be impossible.

Piper goes on to state that the journey toward joy is never an easy one. I look forward to finishing this so far excellent book over vacation (we leave tomorrow morning!). I'm sure that I'll have plenty of food for thought, and therefore, more blogging material! I'll just leave you with this quote from C.S. Lewis,

"Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility....But aren't there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them "bad pleasures" I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean "pleasures snatched by unlawful acts." It is the stealing of the apples that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory....I have tried since....to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don't mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must give thanks, but I meant something different....Gratitude exclaims, very properly, "How good of God to give me this." Adoration says, "What must be the quality of the that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!" One's mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun....If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labour."

Amen. See you all in a week (we mean it this time!).
posted by Lydia