Comfort and Joy

Who do you live to please everyday?

I make a billion decisions every day to please my self. I want to sleep in when I know I should get up. I want to satisfy my anger by lashing out at someone. I want to spend money I shouldn't on that latte because I just know it will make me feel better. I want to look like someone else so I envy others lives on Facebook. And then at the end of the night, although I have lived all day to please myself, I don't feel very good about myself. It reminds of Prince Rillian from C.S. Lewis's The Sliver Chair. He has become enchanted by an evil witch, a curse he lives under for ten years after falling to temptation. But during one hour every night, he becomes his true self. It is a miserable time for him because he can't get free. He sits bound in a chair knowing the deception he is under, but cannot escape.  I think sometimes, this is our spirit. "My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you"-Isaiah 26:9 It seems like our spirit knows things that we don't. We can be sort of under a spell, acting foolish and not seeing quite clearly, but yet our spirit is greatly disturbed, longing and yearning for reunion with our Creator.  During the day I might drown out my spirit, with comforts and pleasures, and any fluff that I can find. But then when you turn off the TV, or get off of facebook, get bored with your iPhone, you feel something unsettled inside you that you cannot ignore. Maybe this is what Romans 8:26 is referring to. " We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."The spirit seems to have a mind of it's own.

"I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy."-C.S. Lewis. I want pleasure because I have no joy. In fact,  It seem pleasures are imposters of joy. I indulge fully believing there will be a great reward. But alas I am always fooled, it is never lasting. I have an appetite for Joy, but I feed it with morsels of pleasure, which leaves me a much dissatisfied being. If I had joy, I could enjoy pleasure, without living for it. without living for myself, which is when I am most miserable. "He must become greater, I must become less"-John 3:30

The good news is that joy is not a fleeting feeling created by something you buy or an outward circumstance. Joy is a substantial force, a fruit of the spirit.  Joy can be found in the presence of the Lord, shed upon the upright heart or brought to the servant. ( Acts 2:28, Psalm 97:11, and Psalm 86:4) It is a much greater treasure then any pleasure.

Psalm 4:7, "You have put more joy in my heart, than they have when their grain and wine abound"