Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
10 25 2024
Can I confess a few things to you? I turned 75 on Weds, Oct 23rd. Honestly, that number has gotten my attention for a while now. Not so much 72 or 67. But ¾ of a century? I visited my Mom the other day, who turned 99 this month. But before I get to excited about thinking her longevity is the forecast of my life…I had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery in Sept, just over a year ago,
at my daughter’s 21st birthday party. Boy was that a wake-up call.
2023 was supposed to be a year of jubilee. I was supposed to retire and enjoy life, but financially and physically, I took the hit of a lifetime in both areas and have spent 2024 bailing out or at least throwing myself at the mercy of God trying to.
What was that all about? What was God trying to say to me? Was there a pony anywhere near this pile of manure? So I know God is sovereign and completely in control, so is God just a cosmic killjoy? I thought I was doing a pretty good job for Him. Up to that point, I had been enjoying having God in my life. But this has been, battle after battle, a continuing assault and bombardment, and a real happiness and joy killer.
So where am I going with this? I know more than a few of you can relate, having experienced your own set of calamities especially after these two hurricanes. Honestly, in the middle of these conundrums and Tsunamis, we just want to be happy. I just want to enjoy God like I enjoy my grandchildren. Is that so bad?
Psalm 63:1: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” I wanted that…I still want that.
And in the middle of an occasional pity party or outright discouragement, I forget!
Not just once, but Psalms seems to be a smorgasbord for rejoicing and enjoying God even though I feel I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
Go ahead and read them for yourself. (Psalm 40:16; 64:10; 97:12; 104:34; 105:3; 118:24).
I read a piece by David Mathis about this. He said, “Does God mean for me to pursue his glory or my joy? I want so badly to be happy, and the Bible commands, not condemns, my rejoicing in God. And I know I’m supposed to want him to be glorified in my life. Are his honor and my happiness two tandem pursuits in the Christian life? If so, how do we pursue both?
Then came the most remarkable discovery: our happiness in God glorifies God. My pursuit of the deepest and most durable joy, and God’s pursuit of his glory, are not two pursuits but one. Because, as John Piper champions in his book Desiring God, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” God’s design to be glorified and my desires to be happy come together in one amazing pursuit:
the pursuit of joy in God”.
He asked a riveting question of himself. “What is the most important truth you’ve learned in college?”
Of course, he went to bible college, unlike most of us.
But I would ask you what is the most important truth you have learned in life?
Isn’t that tied somehow to our legacy?
How do you want people to remember you?
What is the answer to that question we want to leave as a representation of our lives?
And before we jump to some accomplishment, or achievement that we pulled off with the mastery of a surgeon…let us frame that with something eternal, something that brought glory to our heavenly father.
Something that caused us to shout with joy and happiness. Like King David as he danced unashamedly, half-clad, through Jerusalem, praising God as he escorted the Ark of the Covenant into the city.
I love what David Mathis said: “For me, the single most important breakthrough in all my college learning was finding that God is not just the appropriate object of the verbs believe, trust, fear, obey, and worship, but also the most fitting, most satisfying, and most worthy object of the verb enjoy”.
Enjoying God- Have we? Are you? What does that actually look like in your life? Enjoying God?…
Is that what people see when they see us? Honestly, our eyes are opened to different truths at different times. For me, many times, it comes on the tail of a hard circumstance or a conviction or a question I don’t readily have the answer for, but beyond that, something that I rarely or never have thought about.
David continued: “Believe God, trust God, fear God, obey God, worship God, yes! But do you enjoy him? Not with the small enjoyment of chuckling at a clever commercial, but the large enjoyment of basking before an ocean. Not the thin enjoyment of humming along with a pop song, but the thick enjoyment of coming to the long-anticipated pinnacle of a symphony or a great novel. Not the shallow enjoyment of acquiring some new gadget, but the deep enjoyment of reconnecting and
catching up with a longtime friend.
Not only does God invite us to believe him, trust him, fear him, obey him, and worship him, but to enjoy him. Psalm 34:8 says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!”
In other words, how do we get involved? What steps, humble as they may be, can we take?
How do we position ourselves to receive the grace of God, to receive his joy?
In his mercy, he has not kept it a secret how he provides ongoing grace and joy for the Christian life.
Can I continue to quote David? “God made the world, and made us, that he might be glorified. The Bible is very clear, and our own sense of justice resonates with the rightness of it, that God made us to glorify him. But that creates a crisis for many of us. Does God mean for me to pursue his glory or my joy?
I want so badly to be happy, and the Bible commands, not condemns, my rejoicing in God.
And I know I’m supposed to want him to be glorified in my life.
Are his honor and my happiness two tandem pursuits in the Christian life?
If so, how do we pursue both?
Then came the most remarkable discovery: our happiness in God glorifies God. My pursuit of the deepest and most durable joy and God’s pursuit of his glory are not two pursuits but one.
Because, as John Piper champions in his book Desiring God, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” God’s design to be glorified and my desires to be happy come together in one amazing pursuit: the pursuit of joy in God. Here are three short ingredients to help you do that.
- Hear His Voice
Each new day introduces a fresh occasion to hear his voice in the Scriptures, not mainly as marching orders, but as a meal to feed our souls. Not just for soul nutrition, but for enjoyment. God wants our regular sitting down with his Book to be more like coming to dinner than going to the grocery store. Don’t try to store up truth for tomorrow or next week. Come to enjoy him today. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, when God gave them manna, simply gather a day’s portion and enjoy.
2. Have His Ear
Some call it prayer. When we enjoy God, prayer begins to be a way not just to ask God for things we would enjoy, but to enjoy God himself. In prayer, we respond to what God says to us in his word, and in doing so, we commune with him, both asking for more of him and experiencing him in prayer, in the moment, as our greatest enjoyment. The heart of prayer is not getting things from God, but getting God.
3. Belong to His Body
Finally, belonging to his body. One vital manifestation of life in the church is corporate worship. When we pursue our joy in God, corporate worship becomes the stunning opportunity to gather together, not just with fellow believers, but with fellow enjoyers of God.
How might it change corporate worship for you — not just in church on Sunday morning, to look around and think, “These people and pastors not only believe in the truth of Christianity but they enjoy the God of Christianity.” As we sing, we are enjoying Jesus together. As we pray, we are enjoying him together. As we hear his word read and his message preached, we are uniting our hearts together in the God who himself, in the person of his Son, became one of us, lived among us, suffered with us, died for us, rose triumphantly from the grave, and now sits in power — with all authority in heaven and on earth — at his Father’s right hand, and is bringing to pass, in his perfect patience and perfect timing, all his purposes in our world. For our everlasting joy. Together.
So, do you enjoy God? When you enjoy God, you are finally free to surrender your small, private enjoyments (called sacrifice) for the greater enjoyment of meeting the needs of others (called love)”.
I pray I have caused you to assess where you are today in enjoying God. What needs to change for you to make this a focus of your life. You must imagine what a difference that will make for you and all you touch and live for. I pray that for you today.
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David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church.
Excepts are taken from his piece. Do You Delight in God?
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