Pain & Pleasure
Posted by Candace
To respond to my wife's post recently on pain. This is one of the best statements I have ever heard on the subject: "Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. When you have exhausted that last dream and you find it leaves you barren or empty" so says GK Chesterton. For the non Christian Chesterton sums it up well. At the height of his tennis career, Boris Becker said his biggest fight was to resist the urge to commit suicide every day!! For the Christian, God is perpetual novelty. Even though there is pain, there is always hope that is rooted in a realistic foundation of reality.
After a talk with my wife, I thought I should clarify "perpetual novelty". In a nutshell, it is something like enjoying the simple and repetitive. Kind of like a kid saying "dad, throw the ball up in the air" and then he continues to say "do it again, do it again...". Probably how God feels every morning and evening when he pushes the sun over the horizon again and again and again. For the Christian, the relationship with God is perpetual novelty in that there are so many simple things we can enjoy that to the non-believer seem useless. Hope this clarifies, if only for my wife.
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