Writing and such

Seeing as how I figure I should be writing more often than this if I'm going to stay in good practice for it, I decided to try and post on this site more regularly. Gives me a reason to sit down and force myself to think of something to write about.

And if you've read the original premise of this site (i.e. rants that have nothing to do about researched fact) I have from this point on abandoned that purpose and will now talk about things that do actually make sense and have been researched. This is partly due to the fact that I've grown up a bit, and also partly due to the fact that I'm going back to school soon and quite desperately need to get back into the flow of things before I hit the books.

My experiences have led me to a lot of people that rave and rant about a guy called John Piper. Now I don't know if you know who he is (and if you're not a Christian, you may have never had a chance to hear who this guy is) but he's got some pretty interesting insights and views about how Christians should live their lives in relation to God.

I recently read his book called Desiring God and figured I'd express my thoughts about it somewhat here.

The basic premise of the book is something called Christian Hedonism. Now to a Christian, that sounds like sacrilege and to a non-Christian, that sounds like a reasoning for why Christians should go out and party their brains out. Truth to tell, it's neither. Why? Well let's unpack the statement.

Hedonism is defined by dictionary.com as "the pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to pleasure of the senses." It also talks about "the ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good." So basically, when someone lives hedonistically, they seek what causes them the most pleasure. John Piper then goes on to say that this is how people are geared, to desire the most pleasure for themselves, and indeed this is what God wants us to do, that is to find the greatest pleasure in our lives.

But before you stop and go, "Great! An excuse to start going out with the buddies everyday and indulging in the most sensual things ever! Strip clubs, massage spas, and bars here I come" Piper goes on. He says that people can only truly be happy and joyful when they are satisfied by the greatest thing in the universe. And no, those greatest things are not sex, drink, and the like but God. We can only be most satisfied when we are satisfied with God. This then leads to his statement "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him."

This is an interesting idea, especially for me as a Christian. For I've heard everywhere that we must do what we do out of love and as if we were speaking the words of God and doing things with God's strength, but a lot of the time, I have asked myself the question, how? This idea that we glorify God by enjoying him gives me one idea as to how to do that. If I make the primary focus of my life getting to know God better and spending time with him and immersing myself with him, my life and attitudes will naturally change to become more like him. No actions on my part can make me more like God; after all, I'm only a human and can't even begin to fathom God. Only by immersing myself in his presence can I even begin to grasp the idea of what it means to be like God.