Week Four - Day Two: Getting Acquainted

“Something more than a theoretical knowledge of God is needed by us. God is only truly known in the soul as we yield ourselves to Him, submit to His authority, and regulate all the details of our lives by His holy precepts and commandments.”

No doubt A. W. Pink was exactly right. Still, for most of us we have to rescue the idea of our need to submit to God from the “irrelevant” file. It sounds pretty old fashioned. Maybe for that reason, the inspiration to obey God’s ways grows cold very easily. Or maybe it doesn’t grow cold; maybe it gets lost in the whirlwind of activity we call our schedules.

This says something about our vision of God. Over the next few months I hope we can address that inadequate vision.

But the tendency for obedience to God to become irrelevant to us also says something about how easily fooled we are. I believe we live with an unspoken assumption that our best chance at happiness comes by us trying to provide for our pleasures and comforts the best we can … while also being the best person we can be. I often tell our church that the American middle class really likes its life – basically. Most of us want our life … only better. In fact, we’ll do anything we can, within reason, to pursue our pleasures and comforts. We have some of them; they make us feel good. So it stands to reason that more of them would fully satisfy us. It just makes sense, doesn’t it? If you want to be happy, then find out what gives you happiness and pursue it all out … within reason … while also trying to be a good person. This just makes sense as a governing philosophy of life!

At least it makes sense at first glance. But let’s look a little deeper. We know there are problems with this philosophy! And I don’t mean just “I-should-be-more-religious-and-I-should-feel- guilty-about- just- pursuing-my-own-desires” kind of know. With a little bit of honest reflection on this we can easily see there are gigantic problems with this philosophy. Number 1: it all depends on me – my effort, my thoughts about my own happiness, my sense of what is within reason. Number 2: it does not work.

Harvard Psychology professor, Daniel Gilbert, took an extensive and fascinating look at happiness in a book called Stumbling on Happiness. Gilbert sites a voluminous amount of research studies and testimonies to make the (startlingly Jesus-like) observation that “present me is not very good at predicting what will make future me happy.” Don’t you love that terminology? Present me persists in thinking that future me will be thinking and feeling exactly the way present me is thinking and feeling. But this is very, very rarely the case.

In other words, we may not always be the best source for identifying what will make us happy – at least not future us. We may need to listen to a higher source in order to identify what will make me truly happy. This is why obedience to God as a philosophy of life works!

Let me invoke R. C. Sproul’s brief testimony to add punch to this train of thought.

“A big problem I had in my youth was that I did not quite understand the difference between happiness and pleasure. I would like to report to you that since I have become a man I have put away childish things. Unhappily, that is not the case. There are still childish things that cling to my adult life. I still struggle with the difference between happiness and pleasure. I know the difference in my head but it has not yet reached my bloodstream. “I have committed many sins in my life. Not one of my sins has ever made me happy. None has ever added a single ounce of happiness to my life. On the other hand, sin has added an abundance of unhappiness to my life … Sin can be pleasurable but it never brings happiness.”

I don’t know why R.C.’s testimony is universally true. I don’t know why we can’t simply find what we think brings us happiness and pursue it all out … and then get what we want: happiness. I don’t know why present me is so consistently inadequate at predicting what will make future me happy. I don’t know why this doesn’t work. But I know it doesn’t. All we need to do for proof (besides look at the evidence from our own lives) is pick up any of a number of magazines devoted to the lives of young Hollywood and read the results of this assumption. They’ve got what all of the rest of us want … sorta. They’ve got youth, good looks, huge bank accounts, access to the most beautiful people and the most exclusive places, adoring fans … And yet, we keep reading about how screwed up they are. Why? “Well, they’re idiots,” we tell ourselves. “If I had all those things I wouldn’t screw it up!”¹

I don’t think so. I think the whole game plan doesn’t work. When we make our highest aim to have and to do what we think will bring us the greatest comfort and pleasure we inevitably don’t get what we want: happiness.

Before You Start Your Day

1. Read Psalm 16 for a very different take on life.

   (1) Keep me safe, O God,
         for in you I take refuge.

   (2) I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord;
         apart from you I have no good thing."

   (3) As for the saints who are in the land,
         they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.

   (4) The sorrows of those will increase
         who run after other gods.
         I will not pour out their libations of blood
         or take up their names on my lips.

   (5) LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
         you have made my lot secure.

   (6) The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
         surely I have a delightful inheritance.

   (7) I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
         even at night my heart instructs me.

   (8) I have set the LORD always before me.
         Because he is at my right hand,
         I will not be shaken.

   (9) Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
         my body also will rest secure,

   (10) because you will not abandon me to the grave,
         nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

   (11) You have made] known to me the path of life;
         you will fill me with joy in your presence,
         with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

   1. Look at the first 6 verses and identify thought patterns is this Psalmist that show that submission to God is his philosophy of life.
   2. How does the Psalmist live out that submission?
   3. What is the result of this lifestyle?
2. Pray that God will help you make obedience to Him the governing principle of your life.
3. Remember to use the cell phone texts today to “set the LORD always before” you.