Where I've been, and some thoughts for today...

It's been a whole week since I posted anything... even though it's been my goal every day since last Wednesday to get something up here...

I spent the weekend (Thurs-Sun) in Chicago working on legislative stuff, and then came home and succumbed to a nasty flu with a 104F fever, that has been generously shared between most of our family members. I have my fever down to 103 degrees today, but I'm still not up to catching up on my online life!

Until I'm "up and running" again, here's a few thoughts from C.S. Lewis and John Piper....


If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slim because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C.S. Lewis, 1941

That's it! The enemy of worship is not that our desire for pleasure is too strong but too weak! We have settled for a home, a family, a few friends, a television, a microwave oven, an occasion al night out, a yearly vacation, and perhaps a personal computer. We have accustomed ourselves to such meager, short-lived pleasures that our capacity for joy has shriveled. And so our worship has shriveled. Many can scarcely imagine what is meant by a "holiday by the sea" - worshiping the living God!
John Piper, Desiring God, 1986

And I venture to say that it is not necessarily that man's desires are too weak - for in his innate selfishness he seeks whatever he thinks will please him most. I think that mankind (me included) has no idea of the joy of loving, serving, and worshiping the Living God.

Somehow we prefer to believe our own minds that a new car or house or a better job would make us happier than God.

We are far too ignorant and foolish, because we don't take God seriously when He tells us that in His Presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand there are pleasures forever more. And that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him....