Are Humankind’s Desires Sinful?

Are humankind’s desires sinful?

You are the LORD’s people! So celebrate and praise the only God. Psalm 97:12, CEV

Christ [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean . . . so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. JOHN FLAVEL

C. S. LEWIS WROTE,

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion . . . is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.^a

When I first read these words, having known Christ for only a few years, it was paradigm shifting. In my brief church experience, I’d learned many wonderful things, but I’d also been taught that God was opposed to our pursuit of happiness. When I delighted in something “secular,” such as music or science fiction or a good movie, I felt vaguely guilty, as if my pleasure displeased God.

But Lewis had a different perspective. He wasn’t saying that alcohol, sex, and ambition were inherently wrong, only that God—who created these things—deserves the highest place in our hearts. While we can enjoy the gifts God has given us in the appropriate time and place, they’ll never be able to give us the deep happiness and satisfaction we find in him. Finding our greatest pleasure in God elevates our enjoyment of those happiness-giving things. They’re transformed from mud pies to mouthwatering desserts to be fully enjoyed at the celebratory table of God’s goodness.

When I was a young Christian, one of the hymns often sung at my church featured these words:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in his wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of his glory and grace.^b

Unless “things of earth” mean only that which is sinful, these words don’t make sense. Shouldn’t drawing close to our Creator make the beauties and wonders of his Earth brighter to us, not dimmer? Instead of turning away from the Earth’s wonders in order to see God, shouldn’t we be able to see God in them?

After coming to Christ, Jonathan Edwards commented on that very topic:

The appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in almost everything. God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water and all nature.^c

For Edwards, his conversion caused him to love God’s creation more, not less. As I’ve walked with God over the years, the sin-centered and shallow attractions of this Earth have indeed grown dimmer, but the happy-making beauty of this Earth’s animals, trees, flowers, oceans, and sky, and of friends, family, good stories, music, and food have grown brighter.

Thomas Aquinas, the most influential theologian of the Middle Ages, said, “No one can live without delight, and that is why a man deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures.”^d We crave joy, delight, pleasure—in a word: happiness.

Being happy in God and living righteously tastes far better for far longer than sin does. When my hunger and thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive. I say no to sin not because I hate pleasure but because I want the greatest and most enduring pleasures found in Christ.

Lord, you want us to give you everything—heart, mind, and body. You know that our only hope for lasting happiness lies in giving up what we can’t keep anyway in order to gain that which never fades, rusts, or withers. Please help us desire you more than anything and anyone else. May we see following you not as turning away from pleasure but pursuing the best and most enduring pleasure.