Apr 26 2010
People instinctively praise what they enjoy
Want to know what you enjoy most in life? Ask yourself what you talk about whenever there is a break in conversation. Is it great food and drink? Is it your favorite sports team? What about your girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, or family? How about the best video games, camping trips, Broadway plays, vacation spots, American Idol singers, pro skaters, Armani suits, rebuilt hot rods, or even TV home decorators?
Whatever you enjoy, you praise. And there is nothing wrong with that, except when you praise something more than it is worth. No one faults a man who says he enjoys his Salisbury steak TV dinner. But we wonder about his pallet if he pushes away a top sirloin after one bite. The former is only a small reflection of the latter. The TV dinner is designed to give the concept of a great meal in a short time and at low cost, but in the presence of a real dinner, it takes second place. If he clings to the imitation when the real is offered to him, the man dishonors the real meal.
The same is true in the grand scheme of life. All the pleasures in this life of ours, even the most pure and noble, whether mountain views, lifelong love, or winning a baseball game, are all TV dinners compared with the feast for which we were created.
Jesus once spoke with a woman who enjoyed the water she drew from a well in her hometown. When she offered him a drink, Jesus responded by offering her living water that would quench her deepest thirsts and would never need to be replenished. She recognized that Jesus was the true source of all happiness and that her well-water was only a small hint of that true happiness (John 4).
We are all born as TV dinner and well-water praisers, or worse. We would rather praise temporary, half-hearted, and even destructive pleasures rather than look to God for happiness. C.S. Lewis said “we are like children who would rather go on making mud pies in the slums because they can’t understand what it means to have a holiday at the beach.” So, I ask you, give up the mud pies and come to the beach.
True Christians enjoy God more than anything in the universe. That’s why we sing at nearly every meeting. When a thirsty man drinks from a cool mountain spring, he swallows deep and then lets out a most satisfied sigh, “Ahhhh.” The Christian does the same. God calls Himself the “fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:13). He is the living water that is so satisfying we will say “ahhh” (that’s praise) for all eternity in heaven. Come join the chorus. Find satisfaction in God, and what he is for us in Jesus, and you will have plenty to talk about when conversation breaks off, because you will eagerly praise the God whom you enjoy.