How much joy can we expect to get in this life?

It's a great question for you, Pastor John.

I joined us over the phone today.

The question comes from Cameron in Northern Ireland.

Dear Pastor John, I'm reading your book Desiring God, Meditations of a Christian Headenist.

There your description of the three stages of worship have struck a chord in my heart.

I know the lowest stage well, where I feel deep sorrow for not being able to worship

my Lord as I should.

I'm also acquainted with the second stage of spending much of my devotional time in

a state of intense longing for the full joys of God's presence.

However, I find myself only rarely able to experience the unbounded joy and satisfaction

of worship which you describe, leaving me in what feels like a state of perpetually unsatisfied,

longing for God.

How much of the Christian life is marked by an unsatisfied longing for joy that we

will not fully find in this life?

This question is so important as a clarification of what Christian Headenism really looks

like in this life.

I know that I might easily give the impression when I speak of God's purpose for us to delight

in God above all things that this might mean uninterrupted, full satisfaction in this

world while we keep our eyes on God.

But from scripture, from the lives of great saints, from our own experience, we just know

that's not the case.

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