Let us fix our eyes

Is there nothing greater than enjoying God? I think Bruce Pass would say there is more - for "a serious weakness of Ethical Hedonism is its tendency to strip away the inherent value of objects" [italics mine]. And, must we always enjoy our Father, in every moment of our lives? Here I think Pass would give a tentative no - "Whereas Piper says that an act bereft of joy is not worship, the Apostle Paul claims this for another virtue, love". I think he's right.

Yet, together with Pass, I wish to commend and honour most of what Piper says, his very great ministry, and his generosity and vision in making his work accessible to Spanish-speaking people. And I love what he has done to affirm our humanness and help us see that our soul is right when it longs for something more. Indeed, I think the Bible encourages this sort of self-focus and self-fulfillment. We are commanded to look again at ourselves in the light of God's reality and urge our hearts to repent, be at peace and satisfied. And yet, even more than this we are urged to cast our vision outside of ourselves, to look on God: not so we might gain some other end, but because he is our all. To think not of ourselves at all, or at least very little.

I've been noticing some occasions where the opposite is true, when I think we look too much to our own experience. So Christianity gets marketed as the path to true happiness. And such it is, but it is more. It is the path to God. Perhaps we think that unbelievers won't see the appeal, but we may need to trust the Holy Spirit to whisper it to them.

So we seek to understand why God would have things a certain way, why he would ask us to first pray "hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done"; and our answer is that these petitions help us to keep our lives in perspective, remind us there is more going on when we are going through hard times. This is certainly true, but it is secondary. We pray these things first-and-foremost not for any benefit we gain, but simply because we do desire to see our Father's name honoured, to see his kingdom come.

So we are told that because we have all we need in Christ, we may - and must - always be happy. And while it's true that this is ever possible for us, emotions are unruly things and we don't always properly appreciate what we have. And yet, even in these sad times, we have all we need in Christ. This is what is real and ultimate. This is what - normally - brings us joy.