In the last six months, I have given a lot of thought to desire, pleasure, and their relationship. I was reading Desiring God, and perhaps because I have not finished reading it, I had developed an understanding of it (which I am sure Piper did not mean). Honestly, I latched on to the terminology of “Christian Hedonism” and began to define that as someone who sought pleasure from a relationship with God. I nearly labeled myself thus, believing that if I were truly desiring God, my desires would be fulfilled, which in turn would give me pleasure. This seemed almost faultless to me. Why else would all humans pursue happiness? This need to be happy must be God’s means of wooing us. We come to God to find joy and peace. When faced with the question of why Christians do not always find joy in obedience, I simply determined that they must not really be desiring God. I came to the conclusion that to be a perfect Christian meant we would always be happy. I assumed that this was theoretical rather than practical and that is why we have pain.
One day I found myself lost in conversation with Plato. I felt as though he looked me straight in the face and said, “Tell me this. Do you think there is a good of the kind we would choose to have because we value it for its own sake, and not from any desire for its results? Enjoyment, for example.” My immediate response was “well, obviously. God.”
Wait. What?
Now I had a problem. These two philosophies were not compatible. I wrestled with this for quite some time until I read Lewis’ Screwtape letter number 8.
“Sooner or later [God] withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. . . He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. [The devil’s] cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round the universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
God removes his face from us, in a sense, to test our wills. Do we really desire God? Or do we desire the pleasure of his presence? There is nothing that demonstrates a stronger desire for God than when we get no pleasure or comfort in seeking him. Being a Christian necessitates hard times. We will suffer. At some point, we will seek his face, but he will hide it. It is then, when you choose to obey without the incentive of pleasure, that your will and desire for him strengthens.
I know that I will not always find joy in obedience, but I will persist in obeying because I desire my God not for any benefit he gives me. We must value God for himself, not for what he gives. Let me delight in his presence and its joy, but I dare not let my faith dissipate when I do not have that comfort.
