something i read this morning

Those who know me best, know that the backpack of any journey i'm on includes many books.  This morning I started a new book by John Piper.  He is a pastor in Minnesota and one of the best authors/preachers/thinkers alive today.  The book i started was "When I Don't Desire God:  How to Fight for Joy."  

I wanted to share with you something I read:

"Our journey...is not across easy territory.  There are dangers on all sides.  Spiritual desires and delights are not commodities to be bought and sold.  They are not objects to be handled.  They are events in the soul.  They are experiences of the heart.  They have connections and causes in a hundred directions.  They are interwoven with the body and the brain, but are not limited to the physical or mental.  God Himself, without body or brain, experiences a full array of spiritual affections-love, hate, joy, anger, zeal, etc.  Yet our affections are influenced by our bodies and brains.  No one but God can get to the bottom of these things.  "For the inward mind and heart of a man are deep!" (Ps. 64:6); and not just deep, but depraved: "The heart is decietful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9)

So the answer to the question, "What should I do when I don't desire God?" is not simple.  But it is crucial.  The apostle Paul said,  "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed" (1 Cor. 16:22).  Love is not a mere choice to move the body or the brain.  Love is also an experience of the heart.  So the stakes are very high.  Christ is to be cherished, not just chosen.  The alternative is to be cursed.  Therefore life is serious.

I don't know about you, but I know me.  And I know that I have times when the road seems long and serious and it feels as if I have lost sight of the God who is supposed to be leading me.  My prayer today for both you and I is that we will find the Joy.  And not just a temporary, fleeting, gone tomorrow joy, but a Joy that lasts because its' foundation is in the Eternal, Holy God of the Universe.  And it lasts because He has declared that it should.

thanks for listening,

j