Virtually twenty years after writing what many would name my signature e-book, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, I lastly wrote the e-book I knew I needed to write as a vital sequel. The e-book is When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy. It’s now been greater than twenty years since its publication in 2004.
Lengthy earlier than this e-book got here into being, I used to provide three messages when requested to talk on Christian Hedonism — the theme of Wanting God. However in a short time, I spotted {that a} fourth message was wanted, as a result of essentially the most pressing and customary query I used to be requested after these three messages was, “What if I don’t need God the way in which you say we should always?”
Liberating and Devastating
In different phrases, many individuals would learn the e-book Wanting God or hear those three messages (“God’s Ardour for His Glory,” “Our Ardour for Pleasure in God’s Glory,” and “Our Ardour for Different Individuals to Share in That Pleasure”), and they might be persuaded that enjoyment of God was not simply icing on the cake of Christianity however important.
Then they might notice that this discovery from the Bible was each liberating and devastating. It was liberating as a result of they’d by no means heard that they weren’t solely permitted to be completely satisfied however commanded to be. This felt liberating. All of us need to be completely satisfied. However on the similar time, they realized that they did not enjoyment of God the way in which the Bible instructions. And now, with this new understanding of the significance of pleasure, that felt devastating.
So, with the publication of Wanting God, I knew that sometime there wanted to be a e-book to reply to that sense of devastation — a e-book to reply the query, “What do I do if I don’t have the need for God, or the enjoyment of God, that Scripture instructions?”
I did put together that fourth message. And ultimately it was put in Wanting God as an appendix: “How Then Shall We Struggle for Pleasure: An Define.” That, then, turned my guideline for what wanted to be within the e-book After I Don’t Want God.
“Pleasure issues. The combat is important. God’s assistance is decisive.”
I’m grateful that it took me so lengthy to put in writing this e-book as a result of, with each passing 12 months, I noticed extra deeply into the complexity of Christian feelings. And yearly, I noticed extra clearly that the technique of preventing for pleasure are enormously various. And yearly, I examined extra of these means in my very own battles and failures to be glad in God. And I noticed extra cases and sorts of melancholy and emotional brokenness.
So, within the delay, God was getting ready me to talk with extra endurance, extra compassion, extra sympathy, and extra nuanced sensitivity to how amazingly completely different individuals are. At the very least I hope that’s the case.
Core Convictions within the Struggle
After I Don’t Want God is, maybe, my most sensible e-book. That’s harmful to say as a result of different books that don’t dwell on utility to the identical diploma have produced sensible transformations much more pronounced for some individuals. Sensible is a tough phrase. In a way, I might describe among the most advanced theological works I’ve learn as essentially the most sensible, as a result of they resulted in essentially the most thoroughgoing results in my life. However what I imply by sensible right here is that I attempted to deal primarily with the “the best way to” questions of residing the Christian life.
The title After I Don’t Want God: How you can Struggle for Pleasure implies three large commitments. It implies that wanting God and pleasure in God are massively essential, not marginal. It implies, second, that persevering in that pleasure essentially consists of our preventing for it. That’s, actual effort is expended. Actual warfare is waged. And third, the title consists of the conviction that, in all of the preventing we do, we by no means combat in our personal energy. And the success of the combat by no means lastly is determined by us however on God.
These three factors can scarcely be overemphasized. Pleasure issues. The combat is important. God’s assistance is decisive. All of them are controversial. So, the place do you stand? Is God most glorified in you if you find yourself most glad in him? In that case, pleasure shouldn’t be marginal. Are you keen to combat on your pleasure? Or is that an oxymoron for you — “fought-for pleasure”? To make sure, it’s like saying, “Work for relaxation.” “Run for stillness.” “Wage warfare for peace.” Sure. Precisely. Religion is a resting and a stillness and a peace — and but Paul tells us, “Struggle the nice combat of the religion” (1 Timothy 6:12). Combating for pleasure shouldn’t be a contradiction.
I pray that God will grant you to embrace all three of those convictions. I believe all of them are important for the biblical pursuit of pleasure in God.
- Pleasure issues: “Delight your self within the Lord” (Psalm 37:4).
- The combat is important: “Put to demise the deeds of the physique, [and] you’ll stay” (Romans 8:13).
- God’s assistance is decisive: “I labored more durable than any of them, although it was not I, however the grace of God that’s with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
How you can Struggle for Pleasure in God
This month at Wanting God, our workforce will give recent consideration to “How you can Struggle for Pleasure in God.” We’ll rehearse God’s technique of grace — his phrase, prayer, and the covenant fellowship of the native church — and we’ll ponder how Devil opposes and seeks to sabotage our pleasure in God. We’ll take into account the usage of nature and the stewardship of our our bodies within the pursuit of pleasure, and we’ll revisit the concluding query, “What do I do when the darkness doesn’t raise?”
In all of it, we intention to recollect an all-important perception from C.S. Lewis, because it relates not solely to hope but in addition to pleasure:
You can not hope and likewise take into consideration hoping on the similar second; for in hope we glance to hope’s object and we interrupt this by (so to talk) turning spherical to have a look at the hope itself. . . . The surest technique of disarming an anger or a lust was to show your consideration from the woman or the insult and begin analyzing the fervour itself. The surest method of spoiling a pleasure was to begin analyzing your satisfaction. (Shocked by Pleasure, 218)
God, and God alone, is the ultimate, final aim of our quest. All that God is for us in Jesus is the Object of our quest for pleasure. After we communicate of preventing for pleasure, we imply pleasure in God, not pleasure regardless of God. After we communicate of eager for happiness, we imply happiness in all that God is for us in Jesus, not happiness as a bodily or psychological expertise aside from God. Whether or not we’re wanting or delighting, the tip of the expertise is God.
Combating for that have of pleasure in God, via Jesus Christ, is what the e-book and our recent focus this month are all about. I hope you’ll be part of us.
