The Pleasure Principle

My book club recently completed reading a book by CS Lewis called the Weight of Glory. It is a collection of lectures he gave during World War II and I found the book to be very compelling.

There was one sermon in particular that renewed my way of thinking in respect to my relationship with God. The book lays out the case that man was created to experience and seek pleasure. Pleasure is a good thing that should be embraced, but unfortunately the world and our sinful nature have co-opted this desire and made pleasure seeking a guilty word. Today we seek pleasure from money, sex, power, fame but none of these pursuits give us any lasting relief in our journey toward pleasure. They only bring guilt and disillusion. But the very fact that we strive for something called pleasure gives credence to the fact that it must exist. And if we are created to pursue this desire, there must be a true pleasure that fulfills this desire. One that does not flee in the night as our earthly pleasures do.

So what is it that gives us this pleasure? Lewis argues that we can only attain this pleasure by pleasing God. What could me more enjoyable than experiencing the praise and affirmation from the one who created us, knowing that the God of universe is happy and satisfied with us. In earthly terms I correlate this to being praised by our boss or family or a close friend. It feels good to know that they appreciate us and we feel wanted. But how much better to be wanted and appreciated by God himself?

John Kennedy famously said "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can for your country". In the same vein, as pleasure seekers we should not be asking what God can do for us but what we can do for God. This thinking is a direct contrast to our culture's current relationship with God. It's all about self, and what we can get out of God. We want him to heal us or a family member, to provide for us financially or emotionally, or maybe even we just want a get out of hell free card from him. God can and does provide all these things but even if he chose to bless us with these requests we would still miss out the truest blessing of all; the pleasure of serving him.

There is an older movie called Chariots of Fire. It's one of my favorites and it is about a Christian man who is seeking to be in the Olympics. In one moving scene, his sister questions his motives and encourages him to give up running and go back to China as a missionary. He responds by agreeing that that going to China is a noble endeavor but when we he runs he feels God's pleasure and he therefore cannot give it up. As the movie unfolds we become aware that God indeed wanted him to be in the Olympics and uses him as a great testimony for Himself.

When we are serving God, we know so because we feel his pleasure. Conversely, if we do not feel his pleasure, we should question whether or not we are truly living lives pleasing to God or are we seeking our own pleasure in the habits and passions that give only temporal satisfaction. It is a daily choice to please God. It is a task that we cannot accomplish in our own power. But if we understand pleasure in this context, we will begin to seek and experience the one and only lasting pleasure that really satisfies our soul.