The Hidden Goal
If you were to ask a room of Christians what should be central to their lives, you’d hear a lot about sacrifice, service, and endurance. You might hear about holiness or justice. But you probably wouldn't hear much about enjoyment.
For many of us, the idea of "enjoying God" feels like a luxury we can't afford, or perhaps a prize at the end of a long race of obedience. We are conditioned to believe that delight is something we earn. In our workplaces, we are enjoyed for our productivity; in our social circles, for our utility. Naturally, we bring this "performance-based" exhaustion into our faith. We turn the Christian life into a spiritual checklist, hoping that if we work hard enough, we’ll finally unlock the joy we’ve been promised.
But a relationship marked only by effort is dangerously fragile. Jesus didn’t come to give us a longer to-do list; He came to offer us Himself. If the life we were made for doesn't start with our performance, where does it begin?
Original Design: Relational Delight
To understand enjoyment, we have to look past our own efforts and into the eternal heart of God.
What was God doing before the world was even a thought? Scripture gives us a tiny, brilliant window into that eternal past in John 17, where Jesus speaks of the love the Father had for Him "before the foundation of the world."
Before there was an earth to govern or a humanity to save, there was a community: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This community was marked by radical, unending, relational delight. God didn't create the world because He was lonely or needed a workforce; He created out of an overflow of affection.
We often think of God primarily as a Judge or a Taskmaster, but those roles are responses to a broken world. His original state is that of a Father who is filled with delight. He created you because He wanted to invite you into His own loving life. You were designed, first and foremost, to be the object of God's affection.
Jesus: Restoring Your Capacity for Joy
If the original design was joy, then the mission of Jesus is its restoration. He didn't come merely to balance the cosmic books; He came to bring us home to the Father's table.
Jesus summarizes His own heart with startling simplicity in John 15:
"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full."
Through His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus invited you into His family—not as a servant, but as a beloved child. Adoption isn't motivated by the child's potential; it’s motivated by the parent's love.
When God looks at you, He doesn't see your half-hearted efforts or your lingering failures. He sees the finished work of His Son. He rejoices over you with gladness; He quiets you with His love. The life that wants to enjoy God must first learn the gentle art of receiving the enjoyment of God.
Positioning Ourselves for Grace
When we realize we are already cherished, our perspective on "doing" begins to shift. We find that grace doesn't lead to passivity; it leads to a new kind of presence.
Think about a sunset. You cannot force a sunset to be beautiful, and you certainly can’t "work" to make it happen. It is a pure gift. But if you want to experience it, you have to drive to the lookout point. You have to position yourself to receive it.
In the Christian life, we don't "do" to get God's attention; we embrace practices of grace to position ourselves where His joy can reach us. These aren't chores to be executed; they are windows to be opened.
- Worship: Whether we are singing or praying, listening to a sermon or gathering around the Table, we aren't performing to impress God; we are positioning our forgetful hearts to remember what is true.
- Delight: We don't feast to escape life; we feast to savor the "relational delight" God embedded in the simple gifts of food, laughter, and friendship.
- Rest: We practice the Sabbath—the art of "doing by not doing"—to prove to our anxious souls that the world holds together because of God’s work, not ours.
Far Too Easily Pleased
C.S. Lewis famously suggested that our desires are not too strong, but too weak. We are like ignorant children content to make mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.
We are far too easily pleased by the cheap joys of ambition and distraction. Meanwhile, infinite joy is being offered to us in the person of Jesus—the One who is "gentle and lowly in heart."
Enjoying God isn't a reward for a job well done; it is the atmosphere of the kingdom. It is the practice of waking up every day and realizing that the most powerful Being in the universe actually likes you.
How might that reality re-narrate your life this week? What would change if you stopped trying to work for His delight and started living from it?
