The Love of Pleasure

It’s amazing to me that sometimes we don’t do what’s good for even the easiest one to love .

Maybe you aren't even the easiest person for yourself to love.  Maybe you don't even love yourself. 

I know that I’m not even the easiest for myself to love.
But above all I think deep down inside, our tendency is to be selfish and to look out for numero uno.  Even more than out rightly loving ourselves, we as people have a tendency to love pleasure the most.  In one sense, loving pleasure could probably seem like loving yourself.  But in some other senses I don’t know if that logic would be sound.  It depends on the pleasure.

Some pleasure is a bad deal.  It leaves us robbed and empty and feeling cheapened and worthless.  I am tempted not to even call this kind of pleasure “pleasure” but albeit fleeting and unsubstantial, it is still pleasure.  This is the kind of pleasure that leaves and not only leaves, but leaves us empty.  And left empty, we ask ourselves how we could be so weak and stupid to fall for (again) the same thing that has let us down many times before.  But we do it.  Because really we don’t even have our own best interest at heart- just our own pleasure.

Our desire for pleasure is not bad.  Attempting to quench the disire with lame pleasures is though.  Because any pleasure which we chose to grasp instead of the best is really idolatry.

So often in life we are making choices and usually those choices in some way involve picking the best of two or more things.  We use our judgment to try to decide what will be the most pleasurable and beneficial to us.  Sometimes though, our judgment isn’t right.  It’s a hard concept to grasp that sometimes the best view that you or I have will still not be good enough.  Sometimes even if we have insight and a good judgment between the right and wrong choice, we pick the wrong thing anyway.  That is a scary subject for another post perhaps.

Whether it's because I just didn't know or chose the wrong thing knowingly, I find myself choosing sin time and time again. 

In light of the fact that I am a weak human in my own strength, this is not so shocking. In light of what the Lord has done for me and how good He is though, the first sentence of this paragraph is pretty frustrating.

The thing is, choosing sin over the Lord is to choose the lesser pleasure every time.  There is never an instance when choosing sin over Him will get me to a better place than the other way around.  It seems simple but when life is swirling all around, it’s hard to believe and remember it.  My natural judgment wouldn’t tell me that it’s true.  It would tell me to choose whatever seems pleasurable at the time.  But choosing something pleasurable is not always good.  Choosing God, who is good though, will always be the highest pleasure.  My satisfaction is not better than what is good for me – but what is good for me will satisfy me.  It’s how I was made.

I’ve wasted so much time in my life chasing after what I wanted but only when I accepted what I needed did I get what I really wanted. 

Not to say that sometimes there aren’t decisions when the Lord says “You decide”.  Because there are those decisions everyday.  And I’m not trying to tell you not to enjoy life- quite the opposite actually.  I'm just saying, when it comes to those pleasures where you can choose between anything else and the Lord, choose the Lord.  Easier said than done but that's what the Holy Spirit is for.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is really Him.  Sometimes it's hard to choose Him even when you do know.  But I promise you, if you come to the Lord with a contrite heart and ask for His help, He will never let you down. 

Because you know, even when you can’t tell, don’t know, or don’t care anymore, He still has your best interest at heart.  And He says you’re worth His best interest. 

“The Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish.” Psalm 1:6