Sep/Oct 2004
HE ASKED ME TO REMIND YOU
Quit Trying So Hard!
A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from one of my favorite writers, Nancy Kennedy. Nancy is one of the most vulnerable and honest Christians I know and, more than that, she always makes me think.
She was writing a newspaper column and asked my thoughts on whether it was possible to love someone and not enjoy them and, conversely, if it was possible to enjoy someone and not love them. I didn’t have a lot to say to Nancy in answer to her question, but I’ve been thinking about it for a fairly long time since then.
One must, I suppose, start by defining love. Jesus said that we were to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48). Now, if they’re really our enemies, love and enjoyment don’t sleep well together. Jesus surely meant by love, a love different than the love with which I love my wife and my friends. So, I suppose one can love someone without enjoying them. There are some people who are loved better from a distance.
People say that love isn’t a noun but a verb. Love, they say, isn’t what you feel, but what you do. If that is true (and I’m not sure that it is, completely) it is certainly possible to love someone without enjoying them.
But if love is a passion—and I sometimes think that a deep and profound love must be that— I’m not sure that one can separate love and enjoyment. I enjoy being around my wife… but the enjoyment is a part of the love I have for her. And frankly, it wasn’t so much a decision as it was a fever…and I was just hanging out when I noticed Anna. Then “it” happened. It sounds really spiritual to talk about love as something aside from feeling; but, at least in the deepest sense, love does involve feelings.
Now let’s talk about God. After all, I’m a religious professional and you expect me to say something about God.
John Piper has written a lot about “Christian Hedonism.” And, contrary to what it sounds like, he is not a heretic. In fact, what he says is quite orthodox and profound. He says, for instance, that being a Christian is desiring or delighting in God. Piper says that our chief end is to glorify God by enjoying him forever, that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
While I agree with that, it is a bit too religious for me. In fact, once I realized that I could glorify God by enjoying him, I started really, really working on enjoying him, expecting that, in the enjoyment, I would glorify him. It didn’t work. The more I worked at it, the less I enjoyed God. In fact, by trying to enjoy him, I ended up desiring to… well… uh… go to a movie or buy an ice cream cone.
Then I started feeling pretty guilty about the ice cream and the movie and all. It became a spiral of guilt. I decided that, I was a “worm” and after all that Jesus had done for me, I ought to enjoy him more. What kind of Christian was I anyway if I enjoyed a movie and an ice cream cone more than God?
I decided that I probably wasn’t even saved.
That was when I had an attack of sanity. Have you ever decided to enjoy something by working at it?
For instance, I don’t like okra. I’ve never liked okra, and I will never like okra. I’ve tried to enjoy it because I have some weird friends who think okra is one of the major food groups and that everybody ought to enjoy it. Frankly, I think it is hairy and slimy and, even after one fries it, one can’t get out of one’s mind what it was before it was fried…hairy and slimy.
Just as an aside, I’ve decided that the forbidden fruit tree in the Garden of Eden was an okra tree. God said, “Don’t eat that stuff. I never meant for you to eat it. It’s hairy and slimy.” Adam and Eve said, “We don’t care. We’re going to eat okra anyway.” And you know all the trouble that caused. Now you know: It started with okra.
As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, enjoyment is a hard thing to program. I figured that maybe enjoying God was an acquired taste. So I stayed with it, which led to more guilt… which led to more effort… which led to more guilt… which led to more effort… which… well, you get the picture.
So I went to a movie and here is the important and surprising thing: God went to the movie with me!
In fact, he was everywhere I was and wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried to keep him in his “place” at church but he pursued me…gently, kindly and graciously. He never demanded that I love him or enjoy him the way he loved me and, it had become apparent, enjoyed being with me. He was fond of me and you can’t hang around someone who likes and enjoys you without growing to like and enjoy him or her back.
Let me give you some good advice: Quit trying to do and be something you can’t do and obviously can’t be. That’s religion, and it will kill you. In order to pull that off, you have to be dishonest with God and with everybody else. Trust me. I’ve been there, done that and have the T-shirt. It just doesn’t work, and it will make you so religious that nobody will be able to stand being around you.
Instead, go to a movie and have an ice cream cone. But, invite Jesus to go with you.
That’s it. Just let him love you and the time will come when, almost without knowing it, you will find that you love him back… and, not only that, you enjoy hanging out with him…big time.
He asked me to remind you.
—Steve Brown