Why We Crave and Crave - Yet Only One Thing Will Solve It

Thomas Manton:
'The soul is like a sponge, always thirsting, and seeking of something from without to be filled; a chaos of desires. Man was made to live in dependence. Now, of all portions in the world, there is none worth the having, but God himself; nothing else can make you completely blessed, and satisfy all the necessities, and all the capacities, of soul and body..."The Lord is my shepherd:" what then? "I shall not want" (Ps. 23:1).'
-via Banner of Truth Trust

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

I cry to you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my refuge,

my portion in the land of the living.”

Psalm 142:5

"You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You." Augustine, Confessions (Book I, Chapter 1)

The Only Sure Way to Enjoy God Is by Embracing God's Will

This devotion from March 6 in Tim and Kathy Keller's The Songs of Jesus is a particularly clear summary of why the only way to happiness is to trust God to teach us how to live, rather than dreaming up a good life for ourselves.

One caution first: please, let us resolve to avoid any misunderstanding that would wrongly cause us to think that keeping moral standards or doing good works is what brings God's love to us or gives us our reward with Him. Those who love God do good because it enhances their enjoyment of the love God has already given them, and because it pleases Him. But it is certainly true that if you refuse to do good or live a life of integrity, you will spoil and trample your enjoyment of God. You can't enjoy a relationship with any other human being if you are constantly disappointing that person and treating him or her with contempt. Why should we think it is any different with God?

We are accepted by God completely freely, by believing and trusting in Christ's bearing of our sin and suffering judgment for us. We become fully and completely His children through this, before we ever do a single good work beyond believing. But even though you already have that relationship if you're a Christian, you can certainly deprive yourself of all the joy of it by living a life that disdains God's moral character and ignores His words. Therefore Keller is exactly right in saying that to "enjoy a good life... you must live a good life[.]" (emphasis added)

Psalm 34:11-16

¹¹ Come, my children, listen to me;
    I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
¹² Whoever of you loves life
    and desires to see many good days,
¹³ keep your tongue from evil
    and your lips from telling lies.
¹⁴ Turn from evil and do good;
    seek peace and pursue it.

¹⁵ The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,

    and his ears are attentive to their cry;
¹⁶ but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
    to blot out their name from the earth.

THE LIE. To enjoy a good life (verse 12) you must live a good life (verses 13-14). This challenges the lie of the serpent in Eden that if we obey God fully we will be miserable, that rich living lies outside God's will, not within it.[29] This lie has passed deeply into every human heart: that we would be happier if we, rather than God, were free to choose how our lives should be lived. But the ultimate good is knowing God personally, and the ultimate punishment is just as personal--to lose the face of God (verse 16), the only source of joy and love, to be "left utterly and absolutely outside--repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored."[30]

Prayer: Father, if I want to love life, I have to love you--and loving you means doing your will with gladness. Shine your face on me--let me know your love--so I can love you for who you are. Remind me that the only loss that is unbearable is to lose you and your presence. Amen.

From The Songs of Jesus (March 6), p. 65.

29 Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72, p.158. See also Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance: Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2016).

30 C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory."

[n.b. I edited Keller's footnotes to make the references to the books clear, instead of abbreviations and ibid.]

What You Make of God's Glory Is the Test of Whether You Really Worship Him

I've been reading through Tim Keller and Kathy Keller's devotional on the Psalms, The Songs of Jesus. This description of God's glory struck me:

"What is God's glory? It is his infinite weight, his supreme importance. To glorify God is to obey him unconditionally. To ever say, 'I'll obey if . . .' is to give something else more importance or glory than God." (The Songs of Jesus, p. 43).

The glory of God is our supreme value and treasure. It is what we recognize as representing God's infinite worth, His being deserving of our complete worship and devotion. If we make our worship or obedience to God conditional, meaning we will only give it if God meets our desire or expectation for something else, then we aren't really worshiping God or treasuring Him. We are using Him as a means to what we really want. Which means we value it more than God. That is how you know when you have made an idol or false god out of something: you want it so much that you aren't satisfied with God unless He also gives this other thing to you. Truly worshiping God above all means that you don't need anything else along with Him. He is your ultimate desire. He may give you other things to enjoy too, and He does, but they aren't nearly as important as Him. That is giving God His true glory.

The Kellers make another good observation about worship as well:

"But while glorifying God is never less than obedience, it is more. God's glory also means his inexpressible beauty and perfection. It does not glorify him, then, if we only ever obey God simply out of duty. We must give him not only our will but also our heart, as we adore and enjoy him, as we find him infinitely attractive. And there is no greater beauty than to see the Son of God laying aside his glory and dying for us (Philippians 2:5-11)." (The Songs of Jesus, p. 43).

Worship isn't just submitting to God and obeying Him because we have to. It is enjoying God. Even when you don't feel this (and it is often difficult for most of us - often there are other things we feel we want more than God), what you should pursue in worship and prayer is that very feeling. You can worship God even when you don't feel it if you pray for the right feelings of devotion and affection and ask God to make you desire what you should. Desire for God should be heartfelt and genuine, but it also honors Him to say you know you should desire Him - that He is worth that much - but you don't right now, and you need His help. Never hesitate to come to God in prayer just because you don't feel what you should. Asking Him to fix that honors Him too. 
 

Imagination Serves God... if It Is Shaped by God

The imagination sometimes gets overlooked as a tool of faith. Some people see the imagination as a tool of fantasy and daydreaming, something that people use to escape from the really important business of life. Others may be put off by the association of imagination and "imaginary," as if talking about using the imagination about God somehow implies He isn't real. But the fact is that without imagination, we can't really encounter God.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrews 11:1-3 ESV)

the conviction of things not seen. That sure sounds like a job for imagination.

There are many other good examples in Scripture: “The imagination is a necessary component for reading fiction books, non-fiction books, and, of course, for reading the Bible. God’s book engages our imaginations by the parables of Jesus, the poetry of the Psalms, the adages of the Proverbs, and, of course, the apocalyptic language of the prophets. But what makes human imagination even more incredible is how we experience in our minds things we did not, have not, or cannot experience ourselves. The book of Revelation is one example.” (Tony Reinke, Dragons and Holiness). In the past several months, I have noticed some exceptionally good articles on DesiringGod.org by various authors examining the imagination at work in faith. Here's my quick summary connecting the dots.

Imagining for Good or for Evil

Like anything else, the imagination can be misused. Bryce Young captured both sides well a few days ago in a thoughtful post: Imagine Your Way to Joy. He starts out by confronting "an often-overlooked aspect of sin: the power of imagination." Young observes: "For sin to be accepted, approved, and even celebrated in our own minds, it must first be nourished by something stronger than just our senses. The seeds of sin, though sown in the flesh, are protected and watered by our imaginations. Sin is supplemented by story, an alternative narrative — an imaginative world in which sin does not afflict the conscience as easily because in that world, wickedness credibly plays the part of virtue."

Imagination allows us to construct an "alternate reality" where we rearrange what is right and wrong so that we can justify our desires. In our minds, we can bend the rules until the wrong direction seems natural and right. Have you ever noticed how most people who are caught up in some sin will rationalize it by saying they think God understands? In their minds, they can imagine God's reaction to be anything they want. And conveniently, they usually imagine His reaction supports what they feel and desire.

But imagination can also get you out of trouble too. When you feel a strong temptation or desire for something, and at the moment it seems like you couldn't possibly be content or satisfied without giving in, imagination allows you to experience the feelings that will come with standing firm and keeping faithful to God. At the moment, the self-denial seems painful, but later on you will be grateful for having stayed true to the Lord, and the blessings of a clean conscience will seem very sweet. But you don't feel that in the moment of great temptation - and so you need imagination to remind you what those rewards of faithfulness feel like. Young concludes:

From all this, you might begin to think that we should suppress imaginative activity. Imagination may appear to be a distraction from the pursuit of truth, or worse, a misleading trail away from it. Fidelity to reason alone, unpolluted by creations of the imagination, may appear a much safer stewardship of our cognitive capabilities.

However, dismissing the imagination from the Christian life will neither save us from sin nor help us grow in righteousness. In fact, all hope of putting off the old man and putting on the new rests in a God-given, Christ-purchased, Spirit-empowered redemption of the imagination. ...

By using the imagination to envision the possibilities of our faithful service to God, we also find help in fighting our sins. The problem is that we are far too easily pleased with the imaginary worlds in which our sins find shelter. The glorious stories that act out God’s purposes will always be more beautiful than the stories we throw together to explain away our sins. So, we kill sin by expending imaginative effort to envision the superior delight and beauty of God’s stories over the twisted, ugly plots we write to justify evil. 

The imaginary life we build up around some desires can be overpowering and very hard to give up. Even when we are convinced that we need to do that, and we direct our imagination to consider the glory and joy of pursing God instead, there is normally a gap between breaking off from the pleasure of deceitful sin and actually experiencing the satisfaction that comes from embracing God. For that, I strongly recommend Breaking Free from the Spell of Fantasy, an article from several months ago that left a strong impression on me.

Letting God Shape Your Imagination

Our imagination is a powerful weapon and tool, but it has to have something reliable to guide it. And that something is not going to be found within ourselves. I recalled Jon Bloom's description in an August post:

Everything God creates is good (Genesis 1:31). But we must take this in large measure on faith because under the curse of the fall, our fallen perceptions often don’t see it. And our fallen natures often don’t believe it. We are disordered and pathologically self-centered. We are out of sync.

The only things fallen humans tend to believe are good are those that sate our appetites, increase our personal prestige, align with our preferences, pleasantly interest us, operate within our desired timetable, and are convenient and comfortable. In the scope of the created universe, these add up to only a very few things. (Let Good Things Run Wild)

When our imaginations are used to make sin seem normal or okay, they aren't doing it on their own. They are conspiring with our hearts, which desire things they shouldn't. Then the imagination tries to serve the desires of the heart by creating an illusionary world in which fulfilling those desires seems good or even inevitable. Jon Bloom summed it up perfectly in another post: "Our hearts were never designed to be followed, but to be led."

Bloom's description that follows, on how our hearts should be led, is excellent, and his points apply to the imagination as well: let your imagination be used and used freely, but let it be directed and shaped by God. Your imagination can be a slave to your desires or it can serve God by shaping your heart and desires. Let the Scriptures and the life of Jesus define the nature of your invisible world.

If we make our hearts gods and ask them to lead us, they will lead us to narcissistic misery and ultimately damnation. They cannot save us, because what’s wrong with our hearts is the heart of our problem. But if our hearts believe in God, as they are designed to, then God saves us (Hebrews 7:25) and leads our hearts to exceeding joy (Psalm 43:4).

Therefore, don’t believe in your heart; direct your heart to believe in God. Don’t follow your heart; follow Jesus. Note that Jesus did not say to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled, just believe in your hearts.” He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1).

So though your heart will try to shepherd you today, do not follow it. It is not a shepherd. It is a pompous sheep that, due to remaining sin, has some wolf-like qualities. Don’t follow it, and be careful even listening to it. Remember, your heart only tells you what you want, not where you should go. So only listen to it to note what it’s telling you about what you want, and then take your wants, both good and evil, to Jesus as requests and confessions.

The Encouragement of the Old Testament - Psalms Part 2

Another way that the Psalms and Lamentations have encouraged me is how they express confidence in God's faithfulness and His goodness. When you read the words of people who were in deepest despair - people like David, whose father-in-law the King of Israel was hunting him down to try to kill him - you can find tremendous encouragement from the fact that these writers still trusted God and turned to Him for relief. Even in their darkest struggles, they had faith in God. If they can trust Him through such trials, then we can too.

Part of the comfort I have taken in books like the Psalms is the fact that they do not belittle or demean the pain of suffering. They don't try to trivialize it or suggest we're overreacting to it. On the contrary, it is clear from the Psalms that the writers experienced agonizing suffering. But their faith still held throughout their trials, and they still affirmed God's goodness. So whatever we're struggling through, we can be comforted that God was faithful to them and will be faithful to us. Great suffering is not evidence that God has abandoned us. If we put our trust in Him and hold fast to His promises, as the Psalmists did, we will find hope and comfort.

Four of my favorite Psalms for comfort: Psalm 34, Psalm 37, Psalm 56, and Psalm 73.

The Encouragement of the Old Testament - Psalms

I used to think the Old Testament was not as important as the New Testament. I have to confess I saw it more as historical background, and therefore not as relevant or useful in everyday Christian life. What changed my mind was reading through it regularly in my daily Bible reading. I am amazed by what I was neglecting. As my faith and my relationship with God have developed, I have grown tremendously in my appreciation for the importance of the Old Testament writings in my daily life.

Example #1: I have found great encouragement in struggling with pain and suffering (both physical and emotional) through books like the Psalms and Lamentations. These books express cries of pain, anguish, grief, despair, and doubt very powerfully. I used to dismiss them because they were poetic. Now I cherish them, because they show that real children of God do struggle and that it is right to cry out to God in your struggles. David wrote a huge number of the Psalms. He was a man after God's own heart, yet he had these thoughts and made these anguished cries. So it's okay to admit you feel this way and to tell God about it. If David could express his heartache and fear and still be a man after God's own heart, then you can too (man or woman).

Some of us think that we have to suppress our struggles and pretend we aren't feeling doubt or fear, because we would somehow be accusing God or showing a lack of faith if we admitted to feeling this way. That is dangerous and unhealthy. We can't bear these burdens on our own. We need God to overcome these struggles. David honored God by crying out to Him in his suffering, because David showed that he trusted God as both the One who was powerful enough to rescue him and the One who was gracious and compassionate enough to do it.

Your feelings and thoughts aren't hidden from God (Psalm 139:1-4). He already knows how you're feeling inside, so there's no reason to avoid sharing it with Him in prayer. But when you express these things to Him in prayer and ask for His aid, you honor Him the same way David did. And you can take comfort knowing that God responds to these prayers:

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:17-18