I wrote last week about John Piper’s book Desiring God and said that I had just started reading it and was excited about its ideas. I’ve been chewing over it–a better description than “reading it”–and realizing more and more how much it would have helped me back when I was a college student and struggling with the question of what God wanted me to do with my life. But hey–I’m still struggling with that question. So it’s still helpful.I’ve only gotten to chapter 5, so there may be more insights to come. Here’s what I’ve been most struck with so far, though: “Love keeps the reward of love in mind.” A couple of New Testament examples bear out this principle. The first is that of Jesus as He prepared to go to the cross. Yes, He knew that He was facing terrible suffering, but, as Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross” (NIV). There was a reward to be gained through the suffering; it was not an end in itself. On a smaller plane, the Apostle Paul talks many times in his letters about the rewards of serving God. One striking example occurs in Acts 20:35, when Paul reminds his readers to do two things: help the weak and remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Part of the reason for helping others is to gain the blessing. Piper says, “Most Christians today think that while it is true that giving brings blessing, it is not true that one should ‘remember’ this. Popular Christian wisdom says that blessing will come as a result of giving, but that if you keep this fact before you as a motive, it will ruin the moral value of your giving and turn you into a mercenary.” But popular Christian wisdom is wrong. We should serve God willingly, with joy, or our service is displeasing to Him. If we do the right thing only out of a grim sense of duty, then our doing the right thing means nothing. We are doing it out of compulsion, or out of a sense of guilt, and not out of love. We will never reap the rewards of joy that way.
How often I was taught exactly the opposite while I was growing up! I especially remember a story told at the Christian university I attended about a young violinist. She loved music and loved her instrument. But one day the university president noticed that she looked very downcast. (This was back when the school was pretty small.) He inquired what was the matter and she told him that she wondered if God perhaps wanted her to give up her violin; maybe He wanted her to show her love for Him by her willingness to relinquish something precious to her. I don’t remember what he told her to do, but the story ended with her standing in chapel, smiling and singing her heart out. When he asked her what she had decided, she said, “If God wants me to give up my violin, that’s fine, and if He wants me to keep playing it, that’s fine too!” So it all ended just fine, I guess, but the question is: Why did she think she had to give up her violin in the first place? Why not rejoice that she’d been given such a talent and figure that God wanted her to use it for His glory?
What are you doing in your life that comes only from a sense of duty? Can you reframe that action? Or is it something you simply need to stop doing?