Happiness is what many pleasures bring about. But happiness is dependent on the environment. That therefore makes it temporary or variable. Joy on the other hand, is a constant. But only God can give it. It’s a function of being and not doing. As long as one is one with God, a third of them becomes joy for that’s the kingdom (Rom 14:17)
Many pleasures have an end. Unlike God. God is the only pleasure whose end never ceases, and whose progression with, only keeps getting exceedingly broad.
Though gyms are not bad, Schwarzenegger stole the body building attention for only a specific time. But sadly age ate up the muscle.
Alcoholism, smoking, drinking, bring along liver complications, lung cancers and teeth decaying.
Solomon’s wealth and wisdom got him all the women he desired. In the very end, he counts it all as vanity. Emptiness. He literally says,
Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all [is] vanity. (Ecclesiastes 12:8)
All pleasures have an end. They can’t stay you up there. They could take you to a high and then bring you back. You realize you had a fake leave. Time was wasted, but only your mind took off.
Only God has no end. Only the pleasure of Him is bottomless. You can live for a thousand years and still die without discovering dimensions in Him.
Maybe equally, since He made you, He wired you in such a way, that that void you wish to fill with a lower pleasure was designed to be filled by Him and Him alone.
C.S. Lewis says, “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself.”
Substituting that truth is like us choosing to fuel a car using kerosene, an unauthorized fuel. The car won’t GO! And if it doesn’t GO, its purpose therein is annulled. How I wish I’d provide a better solution, but there’s none other.
This seeking for validation from people who didn’t create you can only made bigger the hole and pain you already bear. Addictions and desires, I’ve realized reach a point where the body gets disgusted as well.
The ecstasy that came the first time that pleasure was engaged seems to have vanished! And even if someone loves traveling, there’s only one cure to homesickness. Being home.
In the same way, these pleasures could end up becoming idols or gods, and men are bitterly heartbroken when these gods can’t save them from their perils and troubles—heck, even if someone smokes to escape his problems. . .the problems will still be there when the smoke clears.
There’s only but one solution to this straying in vain pleasures and I’ll plead it,
Return to thy maker, O creature! Return to the God that made thee!
If you had been created by any of these pleasures that excite you, by all means, I would have no problem with you delighting in them extravagantly—but you were not! You have a creator, and He longs for you…
With Solomon’s words, I’ll leave you,
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; (Ecclesiastes 12:1)
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