Desiring God by Piper

1. You should read Desiring God, Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper

2. I am a big fan of Piper (seen him live, often listen to his sermons and read Don't Waste Your Life) so I should have read this sooner.

3. Honestly, this book is like a textbook and some of it is hard going, you have to use your brain and most of the time I like my reading to be mindless but I threw off the lesser joy of picking up a Shopaholic and obtained a greater joy by completing this.

4. The book explains why “the chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever” and that God commands and is the ultimate fulfillment of our joy.

5. It was interesting that Caleb was listening to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged while I was reading this, as she is a Hedonist (in the pursuit of pleasure sense) they often used the same vocabulary but it was amazing the vastly different ending points when one put the term Christian before Hedonist. We as believers pursue joy only in the sense that the joy is obtained in Christ, we seek joy in Him not just in his gifts.

6. The book goes through these topics explaining how to be a CH in life: Worship, Love, Scripture, Prayer, Money, Marriage, Missions (awesome as always), Suffering. Each section was life changing and inspired lots of underlining.

7. I don't think I will start calling myself a CH (it took him over 300 pages to unpack it so I'd rather not go there) but I have already started changing my mindset of throwing off lesser things to seek the greater joy, even if doing so will require some sacrifice and at the same time knowing that a pity party is not allowed because I am doing it all for JOY!

8. Practically it also helped me understand pursuing joy in God versus self. When people say something good, for example, when I returned from being a sponsor on a youth mission trip and then came with my family to church the next morning, people said, “Wow I can't believe you came instead of resting.” I used to shrug it off and then feel guilty about feeling pride. Now I realize I wasn't feeling pride but joy in seeking the greater good of attending church with my family instead of desiring the lesser joy of trying to get a little more rest. Not sure if that makes sense but all to say that this book has freed me from false guilt.

9. You should read Desiring God, and if you read it long ago you should read it again!

   I got this book free from Blogging for Books from Multnomah Publishing.