Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Far too easily pleased

Monday, March 7, 2016

Isaiah 65:18-19, John 4:46
There shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create. I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight, and I, the Lord, rejoice in Jerusalem and exult in my people ... Jesus returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine.

We asked our host Max, an Italian bed and breakfast owner who was learning English, "Max, do you eat to live? Or do you live to eat?" He looked confused, and then a light broke over his face and he smiled, "Oh, yes! I live to eat!"

Those Mediterranean folks with their olives and their bread and their wine, how they do live their lives. They take naps in the afternoon and sit together for long dinners at sunset. There is always too much food. Maybe they don't get as much done as the Germans, but they smell the roses and invented cappuccino.

I have no business turning away from this way of life. Eating to live makes all kind of sense, but living to taste and smell and touch and hear and see is what I am made for.

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory, "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!"

The much-abused word erotic insistently means "life-force." Of course it has something to do with sex. Sex and all kinds of other stuff. We get sidetracked and think we have found the heavens when we're just on a little hill. Lewis says it better:

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex 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."

Would you like a little bread with your wine? Yes, but so much more and more and more. Infinite joy to share that wine with all. Thousands are suddenly fed with a bit of fish and seven loaves. God gives it, and we give it all away.

Whether or not I live this out in my lifetime, Lord, there is no end to your generous gifts, and I can't give them away as fast as you pour them out. You prepare tables in the presence of my enemies, and beckon us all, "Come and eat!" Always, there is joy in the morning.

Devotions Archive

Far too easily pleased

Monday, March 7, 2016