Monday, February 23, 2009

I Am Too Easily Satisfied…

CS Lewis once wrote,

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 immorality and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Why is this quote so real, so poignant? Because it's true. Jeremiah 2:10-13 says the same thing… look especially hard at verse 13—

"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of Living Waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

So often I turn to the bland pleasures of the world to satisfy my weak desires, rather than going to the one true source of all joy, God Himself. So often I drink dirty, filthy mud water, when all I have to do is turn my back on my own work and drink from the purest, coolest, most delicious source of water there is—the Fountain of LIVING Waters (see also John 4:13-14, and notice how Jesus uses this as a claim of His equality with God).

When I read this quote from Spectacular Sins, it just reaffirmed what my college pastor has been saying over and over again… I'm not QUITE sure, but I think God is trying to tell me something here! (sarcasm…)

This [Colossians 1:14-20] is worth memorizing. If your heart ever wavers and grows cold, come here. Memorize this litany of glories, and ask God to give you affections that correspond to the measure of this greatness—infinite in beauty, immeasurable. If any person or any power or any wisdom or any love awakens any admiration or any amazement or any joy, let it be the greatest person and the greatest power and the greatest wisdom and the greatest love that exists—Jesus Christ.

Why would I turn to ANYTHING except Jesus Christ for joy or satisfaction, when HE is the ultimate beauty to behold, when walking in His will is the ultimate adventure, and knowing Him intimately is the ultimate experience?