Satisfaction
This is a follow-up to something I started in one of Joe's posts and then realized that I would keep going forever. So now I'm just going to keep going forever on here instead! *wicked manaical laughter*
In that comment I talked about some things that just aren't the biggest or even relatively close factors when it comes to the way that I make decisions, now I want to talk a little more about why. The key reason is because none of those things ever satisfies. Money: Just look at all the depressed disgustingly rich people there are out there. I can't believe that this is even considered as a way of finding satisfaction but for some reason this country cannot shake itself of the mindset that "He who dies with the most toys wins." To quote Lewis Black: "You're still dead fuck nuts!" Career: Think of the way that immersing oneself in a career destroys everything else. Or of the psychiatrists offices filled with people who work 12 hours a day and then don't know what to do with themselves. Lockheed Martin released a study saying that people who retire in their mid 50's tend to live for another 2-3 decades while people who go to the maximum age for retirement (65 there I believe) tend to die within the next five years. Friends and family: They all eventually let you down. The more you build your satistfaction on them the harder you fall when eventually they fail. Not a single one of them is perfect. If there's one thing that we can all respect Joe for it's because he never just settles (I'm not trying to imply anything about your plans here Joe, seriously). Why just accept a situation as something that can't be made better? I'm not dissing any of you, you guys know I love you all, but every single one of you has let me down at some point just as I've let all of you down. We just aren't perfect enough to ever perfectly fulfill someone else. What's more we all die and we have no idea when it will happen. How much would it crush someone else if they're relying on someone for all their satisfaction and then that person dies.
Which brings me to another point. The only thing that we truly have to look forward to in life is death. We try to plan ahead, to anticipate, but we never know what will happen. I could not even finish this post and instead die when the monitor explodes. We never know. All we know for sure is that it will happen sometime. So all of those things above are just our attempts to suppress that knowledge, to build up walls against that burden and fear. We do everything we can to find diversion from having to sit and think and then run into the wall of that being all that we actually know. Worse yet we don't know what happens after that. Nothingness? Afterlife? We have never made that journey so we just don't know.
So, in my mind at least, the only thing worth finding satisfaction in (and using as a basis for making every decision) is something that answers that question of what happens after death. If the answer to that is nothing then what's the point of even bothering to find satisfaction? All that happens is we go through the motions for a few years, die at a completely unknown and unpredicted time, and that's it. In fact the only thing that you could decide in that situation is to choose when that death actually comes. For that reason, in my opinion, life for the atheist becomes insanity. How can anyone remain "all there" if they have to live everyday with only the knowledge that one day they will die, they don't know when, and the only power they have to is choose to die at any particular moment?
On the otherhand if the answer to the question of "What happens after death?" is anything other than nothing then we should do everything that we can to make sure that it is the best something that exists. That is the only thing worth our satisfaction, knowing that we have something after death that is better than the life which ends at a time that we don't know. Peter wrote, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:3-5). The idea that we can have an eternal inheritance, meaning that we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God, is the only thing that could ever be worthy of rejoicing over. What's the point of rejoicing over anything when it doesn't improve our overall state? But there is an inheritance that will never perish as we do, will never spoil as our bodies do with age, and will never fade away like even the memories of us will one day. That is worth rejoicing. Getting that is being satisfied. And that is why Peter says "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!" How much praise is given to God when we find out satisfaction in the knowledge that He has met our every desire? There's nothing that we lack if we have that inheritance. Because of the uncertain nature of our existence, our only knowledge being that we die, if we don't have that inheritance then we don't really have anything because it can all vanish at anytime. On the otherhand, if you have that inheritance you have the only thing worth having and you have everything. How could we not glorify God for meeting our every need through no reason than because of His great mercy? John Piper said it this way: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." Only when we are satisfied in Him alone are we recognizing that He has given us everything that can satisfy and truly giving Him the glory that He deserves.
But Peter goes even farther with this idea of having that meaning having everything: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you have been made to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:6-7). What does any trial truly matter unless it affects that inheritance? We are, through faith, shielded by God's power (v. 5) so that that inheritance is preserved. Therefore the only that we should worry about in these trials is that that faith is proved genuine in securing that inheritance, the greek implies the necessity of these trials. When we have passed them and proved the faith is genuine it will be to our praise, glory, and honor when we get that inheritance. Even moreover we're told in Ephesians 2:9 that that faith is "not of yourselves, it is the gift of God". So not only has God provided for the adoption into our inheritance, He has provided the faith to secure us in His power until Christ is revealed and we receive the promise. So then our suffering trials for a little while brings even more praise, glory, and honor to God. Again, to quote John Piper: "God is more glorifed in us when we are most satisfied in Him...God is even more glorifed in us when we are satisfied in Him in the midst of pain."
Yet there's still more involved here: "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:8-9). Because we know what comes when He is revealed and we wait for that and suffer trials that prove our faith, we are filled with a joy that passes our ability to even express, even in the midst of grief. What's more you can take this farther to those times that you aren't going through trials and grief. During these times we still rest secure in God and still have this joy in us because we know that our inheritance and our salvation are secure by God's power. In the greatest of times we still rest on that inheritance and on God alone as being the only thing worthy of our rejoicing. Therefore we already have the statements by Piper, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him...God is even more glorified in us when we are satisfied in Him in the midst of pain" and we can go further than that and say that God is even more glorified in us when we are satisfied in Him in the midst of joy.
In that comment I talked about some things that just aren't the biggest or even relatively close factors when it comes to the way that I make decisions, now I want to talk a little more about why. The key reason is because none of those things ever satisfies. Money: Just look at all the depressed disgustingly rich people there are out there. I can't believe that this is even considered as a way of finding satisfaction but for some reason this country cannot shake itself of the mindset that "He who dies with the most toys wins." To quote Lewis Black: "You're still dead fuck nuts!" Career: Think of the way that immersing oneself in a career destroys everything else. Or of the psychiatrists offices filled with people who work 12 hours a day and then don't know what to do with themselves. Lockheed Martin released a study saying that people who retire in their mid 50's tend to live for another 2-3 decades while people who go to the maximum age for retirement (65 there I believe) tend to die within the next five years. Friends and family: They all eventually let you down. The more you build your satistfaction on them the harder you fall when eventually they fail. Not a single one of them is perfect. If there's one thing that we can all respect Joe for it's because he never just settles (I'm not trying to imply anything about your plans here Joe, seriously). Why just accept a situation as something that can't be made better? I'm not dissing any of you, you guys know I love you all, but every single one of you has let me down at some point just as I've let all of you down. We just aren't perfect enough to ever perfectly fulfill someone else. What's more we all die and we have no idea when it will happen. How much would it crush someone else if they're relying on someone for all their satisfaction and then that person dies.
Which brings me to another point. The only thing that we truly have to look forward to in life is death. We try to plan ahead, to anticipate, but we never know what will happen. I could not even finish this post and instead die when the monitor explodes. We never know. All we know for sure is that it will happen sometime. So all of those things above are just our attempts to suppress that knowledge, to build up walls against that burden and fear. We do everything we can to find diversion from having to sit and think and then run into the wall of that being all that we actually know. Worse yet we don't know what happens after that. Nothingness? Afterlife? We have never made that journey so we just don't know.
So, in my mind at least, the only thing worth finding satisfaction in (and using as a basis for making every decision) is something that answers that question of what happens after death. If the answer to that is nothing then what's the point of even bothering to find satisfaction? All that happens is we go through the motions for a few years, die at a completely unknown and unpredicted time, and that's it. In fact the only thing that you could decide in that situation is to choose when that death actually comes. For that reason, in my opinion, life for the atheist becomes insanity. How can anyone remain "all there" if they have to live everyday with only the knowledge that one day they will die, they don't know when, and the only power they have to is choose to die at any particular moment?
On the otherhand if the answer to the question of "What happens after death?" is anything other than nothing then we should do everything that we can to make sure that it is the best something that exists. That is the only thing worth our satisfaction, knowing that we have something after death that is better than the life which ends at a time that we don't know. Peter wrote, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:3-5). The idea that we can have an eternal inheritance, meaning that we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God, is the only thing that could ever be worthy of rejoicing over. What's the point of rejoicing over anything when it doesn't improve our overall state? But there is an inheritance that will never perish as we do, will never spoil as our bodies do with age, and will never fade away like even the memories of us will one day. That is worth rejoicing. Getting that is being satisfied. And that is why Peter says "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!" How much praise is given to God when we find out satisfaction in the knowledge that He has met our every desire? There's nothing that we lack if we have that inheritance. Because of the uncertain nature of our existence, our only knowledge being that we die, if we don't have that inheritance then we don't really have anything because it can all vanish at anytime. On the otherhand, if you have that inheritance you have the only thing worth having and you have everything. How could we not glorify God for meeting our every need through no reason than because of His great mercy? John Piper said it this way: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." Only when we are satisfied in Him alone are we recognizing that He has given us everything that can satisfy and truly giving Him the glory that He deserves.
But Peter goes even farther with this idea of having that meaning having everything: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you have been made to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:6-7). What does any trial truly matter unless it affects that inheritance? We are, through faith, shielded by God's power (v. 5) so that that inheritance is preserved. Therefore the only that we should worry about in these trials is that that faith is proved genuine in securing that inheritance, the greek implies the necessity of these trials. When we have passed them and proved the faith is genuine it will be to our praise, glory, and honor when we get that inheritance. Even moreover we're told in Ephesians 2:9 that that faith is "not of yourselves, it is the gift of God". So not only has God provided for the adoption into our inheritance, He has provided the faith to secure us in His power until Christ is revealed and we receive the promise. So then our suffering trials for a little while brings even more praise, glory, and honor to God. Again, to quote John Piper: "God is more glorifed in us when we are most satisfied in Him...God is even more glorifed in us when we are satisfied in Him in the midst of pain."
Yet there's still more involved here: "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:8-9). Because we know what comes when He is revealed and we wait for that and suffer trials that prove our faith, we are filled with a joy that passes our ability to even express, even in the midst of grief. What's more you can take this farther to those times that you aren't going through trials and grief. During these times we still rest secure in God and still have this joy in us because we know that our inheritance and our salvation are secure by God's power. In the greatest of times we still rest on that inheritance and on God alone as being the only thing worthy of our rejoicing. Therefore we already have the statements by Piper, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him...God is even more glorified in us when we are satisfied in Him in the midst of pain" and we can go further than that and say that God is even more glorified in us when we are satisfied in Him in the midst of joy.