Pleasing Pain?
Why name this blog “Pleasing Pain”? Many reasons:
1) It reflects the desire of Augustine to be fully satisfied in Jesus Christ above all the fruitless joys he so feared to lose.
“How sweet it was, all at once, for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose, You drove them from me, You who are the true Sovereign Joy, You drove them from me and took their place! My Lord, My God, My Joy, My Salvation!” (Augustine)
2) It reflects the desire of John Piper to glorfiy God not only by knowing Him rightly, but by treasuring Him fully!
“You don’t honor fully what you don’t enjoy. God is not glorified fully by being known rightly, He is glorified fully by being known rightly and so enjoyed that our lives are transformed into the kind of lives that display His infinite worth.” (John Piper)
3) It reflects the desire of Francis Asbury when he finds Christ in him as the hope of glory.
“I found Christ in me the hope of glory; but felt a pleasing, painful sensation of spiritual hunger and thirst for more of God.” (Francis Asbury)
4) It reflects the desire of Jim Elliot to ask that his life might be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.
“Lord, I know Thou art with me, but I fear that because my life is barren for Thee so much of the time, that You gain little glory from being with me. I pray Thee, make my way prosperous, not that I achieve high station, but that my life might be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.” (Jim Elliot)
5) It reflects the desire of Jonathan Edwards to enjoy the sun and ocean more than the beams or streams.
“The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but the streams. But God is the ocean.” (Jonathan Edwards)
6) It reflects the desire of David Brainerd to feast upon that which causes him such “pleasing pain”.
“God is unspeakably gracious to me continually. In times past, He has given me inexpressible sweetness in the performances of duty. Frequently my soul has enjoyed much of God; but has been ready to say, ‘Lord, it is good to be here,’ and so to indulge sloth while I have lived on the sweetness of my feelings. But of late, God has been pleased to keep my soul hungry almost continually, so that I have been filled with a kind of pleasing pain. When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of Him the more insatiable, and my thirsting after holiness the more unquenchable. And the Lord will not allow me to feel as though I were fully supplied and satisfied, but keeps me still reaching forward. I feel barren and empty, as though I could not live without more of God; I feel ashamed as guilty before Him. Oh! I see that “the law is spiritual, but I am carnal.” I do not, I cannot live to God. Oh for holiness! Oh, for more of God in my soul! Oh, this pleasing pain! It makes my soul press hard after God…Oh that I may feel this continual hunger, and not be retarded, but rather animated by every cluster from Canaan to reach forward in the narrow way, for the full enjoyment and possession of the heavenly inheritance! Oh, that I may never loiter in my heavenly journey!” (David Brainerd)
7) Because this life is one of “tearful joy“.
