I want pleasant feelings

  You may have wondered why there are so ‘few’ joys and pleasures here on earth. Sometimes we even accuse God of not being very good if he has not prepared more pleasures for us. That’s why I would like to present to you a food for thought.

   Psalmist (Psalms 16, 11) says about God: You will make known to Me the way of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy. At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

 
   God is really good, he offers us love, joy and peace.

Galatians 5, 22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

John 15, 11: These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

John 16, 24: Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

   We can have full joy. However, it is not something automatic. For one thing, it is a matter of operation of God’s Spirit in our life (the fruit of the Spirit) and for another, it is an issue of our understanding and thinking. Simply put, “If you do not know you have a reason for joy, you will probably not rejoice.”

   All of us like pleasant feelings and hate pain, perhaps except a handful of masochists. We do not feel like changing our attitudes and lives, even because of the promise of joy and peace; we want joy “here and now”. We do not want a “calm” kind of joy, we want intense feelings of joy and happiness. What we would like most is to wallow in pleasant feelings. So why cannot we have more of them? Where is the problem?

   There are two main reasons – we ourselves and Satan and his angels. Our problem is that whenever we have our “source of joy and delight”, we usually forget about God. The problem with Satan is that he tries to turn everything pleasant into a trap for us. Sorry, but I believe that God cannot give us more pleasure because we could not bear it.

   Satan tries to make advantage of every pleasant feeling of ours and make it hell for us. All those pleasant feelings of happiness, love or infatuation, the nice feelings caused by alcohol, sex, drugs, adrenaline, eating etc. create good opportunities for the Evil one to rob us of our freedom and our life.

   How many people have lost their lives because of the pleasant excitement caused by released adrenaline, speeding dangerously in a car or on a motorbike? How many of them have died, climbing dangerous mountains? How many people have destroyed their lives because of their desire for an altered state of mind brought about by alcohol or drugs? How many marriages have been broken apart because one of the couple prefers a feeling of infatuation with other person? How many marriages and lives have been ruined by the desire for sexual gratification? How many people prefer pleasant feelings derived from eating to their health and their lives?

   Do you understand what I am trying to say? The prospect for pleasant feelings often makes us forfeit everything. It appeals to us so strongly that it sometimes borders on addiction. We do not need to complain that God has not given us even more of those pleasant things - it is hard enough for us to bear those we have been given.