Heart & Soul
April 1, 1996
Does God think we want too much, or too little? That's the question I'm asking in my informal, completely nonscientific survey of churches these days. Would you like to participate? But don't answer too fast. Think about it: Is God's chief complaint about us that we want too much or too little?
The answer is—let C.S. Lewis give it: "[I]f 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. 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."
That last line is the answer: "We are far too easily pleased." Our desires are not too strong, they're too weak. That, I believe, is God's chief complaint with his people.
Just how upset is the Lord about this? He says it is cause for even the heavens to "be appalled … and shudder with great horror." As he describes it to Jeremiah, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken the spring of living water and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water" (Jer. 2:12-13). They prefer no water to living water, less over more. Mere drink, sex, and ambition outdraw infinite joy! Go figure.
We have figured. But for us it isn't usually mere drink, sex, and ambition. Maybe it's worse—it's mere church. It's careers spent confused over the difference between the hours we spend maintaining a religious organization and living in and longing for the kingdom and the glory of God. The disappointment ...
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