Taste and See

"Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horrer" declares the Lord. "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water" - Jeremiah 2:12-13

Lately, I have been convicted about why I desire the Lord. In 2nd grade, I desired him so I wouldn't go to Hell. After that, I desired him so I could see all my friends in Heaven. I think that growing up in the modern day church, I was told that if I desire God, nothing bad would ever happen to me. However, my "desiring God" was really going to church, and not doing bad stuff.

My "desiring God" is really "desiring Brett, and using God as an ends to Bretts means, so that Brett won't get struck by lighting". But I came to this conclusion: Thats selfish. No, thats idolatry. No, thats treason to an almighty God. Thats death.

Heaven shouldn't be our utmost desire. God should be our utmost desire, and Heaven happens to be the place that is full of God.

So what does this mean?

I have to reevalute what "desiring God" looks like. Unfortunately, you can't desire something, until you know what that something is. I can tell you to desire a 12 oz. filet mignon from Bob's Steak and Chop house, but there is one problem for you. Until you have walked into the dimly lit, wooden paneled dining room, and sat down next to famous people, and ordered the steak, and cut into the center, while the juice pours out, and the pink in the middle is just right, and the... etc... you can't desire it. You can't desire something until you have tasted, and seen, and taken in, all that is to be desired. And after all that, you have to determine for yourself, that this is something that you find worthy of desiring.

Until I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8), I can't desire him, because I don't know him.

John Piper, with Matthew Henry, said it like this: "This is the great business of life: to 'Put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks.' I know of no other way to triumph over sin long term, than to gain a distaste for it, because of a superior satsifaction for God. " (Desiring God, Preface)

Thats what "Desiring God" is all about, gaining a distaste for everything but God, because of the superior taste that is God.

Going back to the Jeremiah passage at the beginning, the great tragedy in my life, and all of humanity, is that we have this ability to be satisfied by God, but rather we take our own little satisfactions, and replace Him with them. Its like going to the river, and filling up a broken jar with water, and trying to be satsified with that ever decreasing water, when the river is right there. It's like taking a sack lunch into a buffet. And people try to gain their whole life's satisfaction out of that sack lunch, but until they throw it away and decide to taste and see the buffet, they are lost, broken, and angry.

The things of this world will betray you. Hold on loosely to the things that easily fade. I can try to find all of my satisfaction in my dog, but at some point she is going to die. And she was never meant to carry that weight of my desires. When you search for satisfaction in everything but God, you are an idolator, because you see everything in a manner of "how can it help me". Even spiritual things can become this way. When I go to church, or do anything else spiritual, and expect God to bless me, I am using God to further myself. You don't use God. You don't play games with God.

So what is heaven for you? Is it a place filled with steakhouses and mansions, all of your family and friends, golf courses and no work? Or is it the throne of God, who is your one desire, the only Being that can satisfy you completely. If God is not the desire of your heaven, then you won't be happy when you get there.