Desperate Joy

  We saw in a previous post that pursuing pleasure at any cost can lead us into destruction, both physically and spiritually.  Pleasure is a dangerous thing.  But it is also a glorious thing.  God has placed the desire for pleasure in our hearts and He wants us to find it.  He is a good Father and delights when we are living a flourishing, soul-satisfying life.  He has tuned our hearts to seek pleasure. The American Founding Fathers tapped into this truth when they crafted the Declaration of Independence, they wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The Founders recognized that seeking fulfillment and satisfaction is a perfectly natural and even a good thing.   Every person who has ever lived has sought after happiness, even those who live lifestyles of extreme self-denial...

  One of the great things about the Bible is that it shows us characters, heroes, and villains, in all their nobility and vice.  It shows us their glory and it shows us their humiliation.  We see their weaknesses and we see their strengths.  There is no whitewashing here. One such character that I find myself identifying with is Samson.   Samson was a man of tremendous passions.   He followed his heart, not his head, and more often than not, his more primitive urges as well.   He had tremendous zeal for the Lord, but he let his desires lead him away from God all too often.   Samson was commissioned by God to do great things and he did accomplish some great things for the Lord, but that greatness was derailed by Samson's pursuit of pleasure. "And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.   And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the d...

  I have a dedicated, faithful friend named Tom. He is actually the person who updates this blog for me :).  We met a few years back at a Twelve Step meeting for sex addiction.  Tom began calling me on a regular basis, even when I had to move out of state to live with my dad while I was on pre-trial release and could not go to meetings with him.  He was persistent, and I am grateful for that.  At many times I struggled with relapses and depression, and even when I would ignore his calls for days or weeks, he continued to call.  He has helped me through many, many dark times and I am deeply grateful to him for that. When I first started talking to Tom, he was living a homosexual lifestyle, but was on his way out of it in most ways.   He acknowledged that many of his behaviors were unhealthy and addictive.   One of the reasons we connected is because of our shared faith.   An important part of the Twelve Steps is learning to connect with God,...

  One of my favorite hymns is "The Love of God" by Frederick Martin Lehman, one of the verses says this: "Could we with ink the oceans fill And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love of God above Would drain the oceans dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky." Wow!   God's love is truly vast and amazing.   It defies description and comparison.   No matter what any of us have done, no matter what our history, where we have come from, or where we are right now, God loves us with a deep, abiding, and passionate love. Because God loves us, He has given us guidance and instruction for how to live our lives here on earth so that we can find goodness, glory, and infinite joy. But this goodness, glory and infinite joy cannot be found down any path we choose.   They are only found as we chase down the will of God and strive to bring ...