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 and exhaustion of ecclesiastical exertions can make us expect less, if not actually be satisfied with it.
As one wag put it, “My cry used to be, ‘Win the world for Christ.’ Now it’s, ‘Try not to lose too many.'” The church can be so very, very dull and dulling. And so can those who serve it.
Not that there is anything wrong with dull. Brother Lawrence spied the glory and presence of God amid the dirty pots and pans of the monastery kitchen. And that’s the point. He wasn’t satisfied with the dull. He insisted on looking for glory in the dull, on serving God in the mundane. So he prayed as he scrubbed and scrubbed as he prayed, believing with Irenaeus that “the glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God.” He would settle for no less than to meet face to face with the living God, even over a kitchen sink.
May God give us the same holy greed for God! May we look for his glory in the mundane. May we demand that we find it. May we wrestle with God as Jacob wrestled with the angel, refusing to let go of him until he blesses us.
Try this: Memorize the prayers of Scripture, especially the greedy, hungry, ravenous, visionary prayers Paul prayed for the Ephesians: that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:17-19a). Or, “that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).
Pray hungry prayers, visionary prayers for yourself and your people. Say them as you step into a board meeting or face a pile of unanswered correspondence. Recite them as you go through your telephone messages and as you drive to the hospital. And if the prayers don’t express what you feel, pray them until you feel what they express. Settle for nothing less than the measure of all the fullness of God.
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Ben Patterson is dean of the chapel at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
1996 Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP Journal
