| At the beginning of this week, Grandma Van Eerden gave me this book. From what she's been told, this is the book to start with if you want to dig into John Piper's works. I just had to reflect on a great little thought from the Preface.
"This is the great business of life--to 'put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks.' 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. One of the reasons this book is still 'working' after seventeen years is that this truth simply does not and will not change. God remains gloriously all-satisfying. The human heart remains a ceaseless factory of desires. Sin remains powerfully and suicidally appealing. The battle remains: Where will we drink? Where will we feast? Therefore, Desiring God is still a compelling and urgent message: Feast on God."
A few weeks ago, I helped unload the truck for an REO Speedwagon concert at a little country music club/bar in Greensboro. I saw people feasting all around me--savoring the rock 'n roll music, incredible quantities of beer, the scantily clad women, and tobacco in all forms. Honestly, the club was a rad place. The wood on the dance floor and on the pillars surrounding the bar was exposed and rich with age. There was a very comfortable red velvet wrap-around couch built into the area surrounding the bar, and deer heads were mounted on the walls above. If the Romans had Nascar instead of their gladiators and chariot races, this is how they'd kick back and relax, I thought.
But boy was that place empty and cold at the end of the night! As everyone left with half (or less) of their minds intact, I helped the Speedwagon crew-guys pack up so they could get their "f***ing a**es" out of there. The next morning, those crew-guys would be in Tennessee doing the same thing again, as unhappy as ever, shouting nothing but profanities all the while...getting paid to deliver a great feast of carnal, temporary pleasures to some club-hoppers in the late hours of the night.
Sometimes, I look at the way other people live, and it does one of three things to me: 1, it doesn't affect me at all. Some people are just mediocre, and nothing about that life stirs thought in me (except for maybe, "Wow, they're boring."). 2, it awakens something in me, or it exposes weaknesses that I see in myself. Some people are strong and dynamic, and they savor life with a "superior satisfaction." What beautiful people those are! 3, it repulses me. It makes me sad to see someone going from desire to desire without any thought, reflection, or true, deep satisfaction. Some people are animals--drooling, being enticed, consuming, scratching, and excreting life out the hind end. Nothing lasts for these people. Their song echoes Nicole Kidman's character in Moulin Rouge--
I follow the night
Can´t stand the light
When will I begin
To live again?
One day I´ll fly away
Leave all this to yesterday
What more could your Love do for me?
When will Love be through with me?
Why live life from dream to dream
And dread the day when dreaming ends?
I find myself bouncing around in those three camps too much, spending too little time in the second one.
But the great part is, with Christ, we've unlocked the secret to the greatest pleasure of all! That secret isn't just a three-step salvation pitch--it's a life-change. Not just a life-change, but a new and deeper paradigm. It's the ability to savor the God who designed pleasure...and who is the Superior Satisfaction.
Thanks guys for putting up with a long post. Hope your summer is rolling along well. We'll be seein' ya now! |
