He was a spring semester of my freshman year at Ferman University in Greenville, South Carolina,

the spring of the year 2000, when I first remember encountering the claim and engaging the claim

that God is happy. I grew up in the church. I was 19 years old. Maybe I heard that claim. I never

reflected in an extended way on that claim that God is truly and deeply and richly happy

and not sullen and disappointed and nervous and endlessly frustrated with human sin and the

mess this world is in because of sin. At the time I was not a reader but there was a junior on

our freshman hall living in an apartment at the end and he lived on the freshman hall because he

wanted to invest in some freshman guys and so mid year he started a Bible study in 1st Peter.

He announced come spring term that our group was going to read Desiring God and Disguise.

And I was not happy about it. First Peter, I can read 1st Peter in 5 minutes. Desiring God's

a big book. That was not my style. I had my stack of cliffs notes that got me through high school.

But I wanted to be part of the group and so acquiesced. And in due course my vision of God and of

the Christian life was radically changed. And in particular it was one chapter. There was one

chapter I read over and over again and in the last few weeks I looked back at the markings,

different markings and different colors over and over again. Chapter 1, the happiness of God.

I read on the first page, page 33 and my old is a 1995 edition of Desiring God. Redemption,

salvation, restoration are not God's ultimate goal. That blew me away.

These are performed, these he performs for the sake of something greater. Namely, it's a

piper word. Namely the enjoyment he has in glorifying himself. And then a few pages later.

I read about the two lenses and the mosaic. Maybe readers of Desiring God remember these

concrete images. And Lewis gave us such a great demonstration of the mosaic at the end of his session.

Here's the quote, the infinite complexity of the divine mind is such that God has the capacity

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