Book: When I Don’t Desire God

The Book Table is piloting a ‘book club’ idea this semester. We shared a little bit about what has been going on in our lives and we decided on a book to read together. We will get together this Sunday to talk about the chapters we read. If the idea goes well, we hope to expand it and offer it to the entire church. If not, we will have at least read a good book together.

This semester, we are reading When I Don’t Desire God by John Piper

Chapter 1:

Christian Hedonism teaches that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Although this sounds like a win-win situation -the fact that we are fully satisfied and God is fully glorified- this truth is often not the case in our daily lives, or at least, in my daily life. The reality is I don’t always want what would satisfy me the most, because I have my eyes on something else. There is at least one competing craving calling my name at the same time.

One particular day during my ‘health eating detox diet’ a few months ago, I was deciding what to eat for lunch. What would satisfy my body’s need of nutrients would be the soup I can get from Common Ground Food Co-op; it’s pretty tasty too. However, on that particular day, I had cravings for a burger. I wanted nothing else other than a nice chewy and juicy burger, and maybe some curly fries to top it off. Mmm yummy. Off to Arby’s I went. Why? I don’t know, I just followed my stomach. I’m pretty hopeless in wanting to diet if I’m going to crave for burgers all the time.

Piper points to our hope in the sovereign grace of God.

God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want. Only God can make the depraved heart desire God. Once when Jesus’ disciples wondered about the salvation of a man who desired money more than God, he said to them, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27)”.

…
The key to endurance in the cause of self-sacrificing love is not heroic willpower, but deep, unshakable confidence that the joy we have tasted in fellowship with Christ will disappoint us in death.”.

Ah, I’m finding this so very true these days. This is not something I can just “force” myself to do by chanting, “it’s not about me, die to yourself”, because it still ends up about me. I’m realizing it has to be a change from the core of me, I need to find my satisfaction in Christ. It’s the private battle that needs to be won first. External things, even the will of my mind, are just temporary solutions for the moment. This heart needs to change.

This will happen when Christians don’t just say that Christ is valuable, or sing that Christ is valuable, but truly experience in their hearts the unsurpassed worth of Jesus with so much joy that they can say, ‘I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’ (Philippians 3:8)”

Ah, so good. Amen.

“Tentmakers”

My new project is to dig in to the Bible and see what it really says about work, calling, vocation, etc.

One, because I talk a lot about “figuring out my calling” and do very little in going to the Bible for that. Two, my understanding of work + ministry right now is very conflicting; sometimes I just end my frustrated thoughts with “maybe I will be a stay-at-home mom and avoid all this junks”. Not because it is an easier role, just that it seems more “reconciled” in my head with where the work/calling/ministry aspects intersect.

Anyway, some notes from this message on being a tentmaker from P. John Piper.

1. First, as believers in Christ, you are God’s chosen people.

2. Second, as God’s people you are aliens and exiles in the secular world.

3. Third, God wants you there (1 Peter 2:13) and he wants your goals for being there to be different from those around you:

- the excellence of the products or services you render in your job shows the excellence and greatness of God.

- the standards of integrity you follow at your job show the integrity and holiness of God.

- the love you show to people in your job shows the love of God.

- the stewardship of the money you make from your job shows the value of God compared to other things.

- the verbal testimony you give to the reality of Christ shows the doorway to all these things in your life and their possibility in the lives of others.

Love vs. Duty

It’s not just about our decisions/actions, but it’s our desires that matter.
love > duty.
I thought this illustration was so profound! I like good analogies, helps my brain to connect things. :)

John Piper quotes in When I Don’t Desire God,

“Provided the thing is in itself right, the more one likes it and the less one has to “try to be good”, the better. A perfect man would never act from sense of duty; he’d always want the right thing more than the wrong thing. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people), like a crutch, which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it’s idiotic to use the crutch when our legs (our own love, habits) can do the journey on their own.”

– C. S. Lewis

2010 Keywords

I learned last night that we don’t actually count down to the New Year for a New Years Eve service. Haha, oops! After service, I looked at my phone and it was 12:50am!! Happy…..new year minus 50 minutes!!!

Anyway, HAPPY 2010!!!! So glad 2009 is OVER. goodbye. for-EVER.

Pastor Min’s message was really insightful. I’m pretty sure he has said many similar things before, but every word spoke to my heart last night.

Time to look forward. More than resolutions, I’m making them keywords so it can trigger my memory the next 365 days.

1. First of all, January is going to be a detox month – no dessert/junk food, no meat (seafood included, eggs okay), and no soda. I already broke this accidentally after service last night, went straight for the meatball and then the brownie. :( But, progression not perfection, right? The point of this is become more aware of what I put in my mouth and also to force myself to eat more vegetables & fruits – aka be healthy.

2. Follow John Piper’s Bible reading plan to read through the Bible in a year. John Piper is simply brilliant! I follow him on Twitter, and I love that the Word of God is so integrated within him that he has a verse for everything. Hecks yeah I will follow whatever reading plan he uses! I need the Word of God IN me. I seriously do not know how to preach the Word to myself. My mind is .. so .. weak.

3. “If not now, when?” – I am the most impatient person ever, but I am also a huge procrastinator. I have a tendency to push things off to “do it later”, which eventually either becomes “never” or the biggest stress. I’m going to change my mentality to “do tomorrow’s work TODAY”, rather than do today’s work tomorrow.

4. Lastly, I want to be honest with myself and learn to distinguish between delusion and reality.  I think I have a really distorted view of myself and of this world. I used to think that I’m right and that people need to open up their eyes. But I think I’m the one who has been living in an imaginary world. I’m finally seeing that the reason people don’t understand me is because I don’t even know myself! The whole heart motive exploration process has shown me that loud and clear.. sigh.

Also, as I was sitting at the New Years Eve service last night, the word “shameless” came up. The image of King David dancing (like a fool) flashed through my mind. I’m kind of scared of why, and I wonder if that’s gonna be the lesson for 2010. If so, what kind of embarrassing things will I have to go through to learn it?  Oh dear. But perhaps that would be a good thing for me to become. Rather than being so consumed with being what others expect me to be, it wouldn’t be so terrible to finally learn how to “just be myself” all the time. (As soon as I figure out who I am in reality in #4).

So, keywords for 2010: detox, Word, now, reality. Here we go!