PDL and a rediscovery

It's amazing how much treasure can be left untouched and undiscovered in the dusty reaches of a small church library. It's even more amazing to find it in the leaves of a book that's been widely acclaimed and embraced by popular Christian-lite culture, and yet lambasted and cast aspersions at by hard-core conservatives.

This morning I felt drier and emptier and more wasted than I've been in months. I've long broken my habit of morning Bible reading, I haven't prayed for anything or anyone, I haven't prayed AT ALL, and I've been lashing my acerbic razor-sharp tongue out like a cantankerous curmudgeon to everyone who comes near me. Especially my brother. And, most certainly not the least in this list of woes, (to save you, dear reader, from the chore of dirtying your mind, I'd have to use a special, custom-made figure of speech so I can hide my shame) this week I went back, a mud-loving hog, to my mire, not just once, but several times.

So I picked up the Purpose Driven Life I borrowed from my church's library last Wednesday. (Steve Urbina had started a 40-Days-of-Purpose-DVD-study kind of thing long long ago, even before we went to the family camp. I was supposed to read it along with everybody in our Sunday school class, but I, not unexpectedly, neglected to do it, and managed to put it off until the study series was almost finished.)

For the usual Pharisaical log-impaled me, at first it was not hard to notice what was wrong with the book. Despite Rick Warren's denials that this was a non-self-help book, it was obvious to me that he carefully chose his words to woo the reader into believing that reading it will "reduce your [the reader's] stress, simplify your decisions, increase your satisfaction, and, most important, prepare you for eternity." Sounds too sweet and cheesy for something substantial, I murmured. And it pampers the reader too much by catering entirely to his own desires -- his decisions, his satisfaction, etc.

But then I realized that God Himself used the very same sweetness and "cheesiness," if you will, to woo His unfaithful wife into coming back to Him despite her gross adulteries. In Isaiah 1:18 He beckons,

Come now, and let us reason together... though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.

And in Hosea, He says,

I will allure her, and speak kindly to her... I will betroth you to Me forever... then you will know the Lord.

And in the New Testament too, did Jesus not use the multitude's innate desire to be happy in His Beatitudes, for the sole purpose of leading them into God's embrace? Did He not say, "Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be made full?" John 16:24.

This isn't too bad, I thought. I continued reading.

My doubts gradually chipped away as I read the first few chapters. Although there was one which I did not particularly like -- the one about not being an accident and being made in God's image -- for the writhing, backslidden sinner, being called a "precious and perfect unique design" offers little comfort, if any, in view of his self-inflicted pain due to sin -- most of them I liked and definitely agreed with.

The first dealt with setting one's perspective straight and basing it on the Absolute, the fourth and fifth dealt with how eternity matters more than this one parenthesis of a life, and how seeing from God's perspective makes all the difference. All that he said about the impermanence of the world's riches and the unsatisfying thrills they offered to the weary soul, made me shift in my seat a bit. Rick Warren, I thought, your words are close to hitting home!

And then I came to chapter 7. The Reason For Everything. What the entire Universe is for, with the trillion blinding mind-bogglingly massive galaxies contained in it, he says, "It's all for Him." My jaw almost dropped at what I read next. I'll quote it here at length for your benefit, dear reader.

The ultimate goal of the universe is to show the glory of God. It is the reason for everything that exists, including you. God made it all for His glory. Without God's glory, there would be nothing.

What is the glory of God? It is who God is. It is the essence of His nature, the weight of His importance, the radiance of His splendor, the demonstration of His power, the atmosphere of His presence. God's glory is the expression of His goodness and all His other intrinsic, eternal qualities.

He continued to describe how everything in redemptive history -- the fall of man, the Exodus through Moses, the tabernacle and the temple of Solomon -- was orchestrated to demonstrate and reveal "the Creator's glory." And he also described how God's glory shines most brightly in Jesus Christ, His Son. "He, the Light of the World, illuminates God's nature." And then Warren wrote how we humans failed our responsibility to cherish and worship and delight in this magnificent, perfect, glorious God.

When I came to page 55 I practically jumped from my seat and almost yelled with relief and exuberance and joy at having rediscovered a treasure long-lost: Warren says of worship, which he considers our primary purpose in life, "We worship God by enjoying Him."

What? I thought. Is this for real? Did you just say that, Rick Warren of seeker-friendly infamy? On the very next sentence he quotes CS Lewis. "In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him." Then came the ultimate shocker for me.

He quotes John Piper.

John Piper, of all people! Who else but John Piper can anybody more appropriately quote on this matter! And most importantly, he quotes the sentence that summarizes all that Piper's taught and preached: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

Then everything came rushing back to me like a flood.

God asks us to worship Him not because He is like a vain woman looking for compliments, but because he wants us to consummate our enjoyment of Him by expressing our emotions of delight in Him.

God has given us His glory, Himself, as a gift to be enjoyed, marveled at, and seen by us! And as unparalleled love and admiration for Him rise in our souls, nothing is more natural and more fitting than to express what we feel to Him! This is why we worship! This is our chief end! To delight in God and display His glories to the world, and finally, to Himself.

And then --

Guess what happens next.

I wrote this blog entry. Hihi.

Stay tuned for more good stuff from good ol' PDL.