Dear Caleb,
You’ve recently shared your frustrations about the Christian life. It is difficult; “somewhat miserable,” you say. You begin to see more victory over sexual sin, but the heart of the matter remains — you still don’t enjoy this new life in Christ like you expected. You confess, “I think I was happier before I became a Christian.”
You are right to be watchful of your heart and to notice how sluggish it is to delight in the Lord. We must never make peace with this malady — though the best of us feel it too often. But you’re right that the lack of consistent joy is concerning. We have spoken before — you have regularly studied the Bible, prayed, and attended to other means of grace, including church fellowship. But it all tastes somewhat bland. I take heart that you have declared war on this discontent instead of remaining complacent like so many lukewarm professors.
So, what advice can I offer you? Let’s consider this short section of Scripture together:
This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. (1 John 5:3–4)
Let me make a few simple observations.
First, love for God is expressed in obedience to God. “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” So many of your generation imagine they can have warm feelings, sprinkled with some religious devotion, and God is satisfied. They think they love him for every reason but that they listen to him.
To such a man, Jesus asks, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). And he answers, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). While you continue to focus rightly on commands concerning purity, notice also this command: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). His imperial demands go all the way to the heart.
Second, notice John’s description of how we ought to experience that obedience: “and his commandments are not burdensome.” Obedience can be costly. Obedience can be painful. It can feel like cutting off a hand or gouging out an eye. But for all that, the life of Christian obedience is freedom, not bondage. We find his yoke exactly as he described: easy and light (Matthew 11:30).
The child of God knows that to repent and walk in obedience is to trade one’s vomit for the bread from heaven. It is to exchange pornography for the marriage bed. It is to lose fellowship with sons of darkness and worthless men and gain constant communion with kings and queens of heaven. It is to obey Jesus because you love him and desire to please him.
Why are his commands not burdensome? “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.”
A Christian is a person who has been “born of God.” He has new affections, loves, purposes — not perfectly in this life, but genuinely. He lives for God, loves God, and believes in Jesus Christ as fully God and God’s solution to restored relationship with him.
The Christian is lifted above a world at war with God — he “overcomes” its temptations and lifestyle because he really loves the Lord, hates sin, and sees both as they are by faith. Though he still sins, he hates his stumbling and enjoys his Father’s ways far better than the world’s and thus knows God’s path as one of blessing, not burden.
In other words, being born again changes our appetites. We lose taste for our sin. It makes us nauseous, gags our souls. When we lose our minds and indulge in it, it sours our stomach, leaving guilt and disappointment and shame. And we gain a taste for God and the world beyond. Those reborn confess their sin, turn from it, and see true life in walking with God in the light.
Yet you now wonder, Why do his commandments still seem burdensome?
Let me attempt a story as a possible explanation.
A caterpillar enters a cocoon. Enwrapped in nature’s tomb, he wrestles about in his dark unknown only to emerge as something different. He has a thinner body, fewer legs, different eyes — not to mention the massive protrusions on his back — all of which are inconvenient for an earthbound life. Formerly, he knew his purpose: Crawl about and eat leaves (lots of leaves). But now what?
He is unused to being what he now is.
His new, towering wings hinder his crawling. He keeps getting them caught on twigs. He cannot understand how this recent transformation benefits him. He is a new creature, but one he much less prefers. His old friends can’t relate to him as they once did. His appetite for leaves has changed entirely. He cannot return to what he was, even if he could climb back in the cocoon — he has tried.
So it may be with you — you lack enough of the spiritual life to know its glory. You don’t know what it means to be a butterfly, only that you’re no longer a caterpillar. You are a new creature, yet with old habits and expectations. You linger unhappily between earth and heaven. You have too much of Christ to enjoy the world and too much of the world to enjoy Christ. If you only knew — through greater faith, devotion, and consecration — the joy you are now only half-awake to. You have not yet made it into the heavenlies of the Christian life.
Soon you will discover, if you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, that you have found a treasure hidden in a field worth all the world, that to live is Christ and to die is gain, that every other door has been shut to you in your pursuit of eternal life. Continue pleading, fasting, fighting, and trusting; your heart will catch up to your head. Keep seeking to receive from him in his precious means of grace.
But maybe, just maybe — I would be remiss not to mention it — you might not yet be a new creature.
Maybe the Lord has not given you victory over the world’s allurement because you have never truly seen him and known him. You have not yet experienced “the expulsive power of a new affection,” old joys dethroned by a new King.
“Remember Lot’s wife,” Jesus commands (Luke 17:32). Lot’s wife made some progress away from the City of Destruction, but she stared back at her former life — with longing — and perished as if she had never fled. She loved what she left, and the Lord left her to die with what she loved.
Or take the Israelites of old who loved the Egypt they were rescued from. Shackles freshly fallen from their wrists, they longed to return at the first signs of trouble. Oh, what good food they remembered eating back in bondage! Perhaps you have also set your affections on this world’s Egypt and would live there even if you die a slave. It is your home; you leave with great despair; your sins are more pleasant to you than your salvation.
If so, you have not yet been raised with Christ. “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). You drag along because the world weighs heavy in your heart, and Satan still has your appetite. You still crawl on the ground, and if you do not find Christ, your portion there shall remain. God condemned such joyless service: “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies” (Deuteronomy 28:47–48).
I still believe better for you. I recall the first days when Christ captivated your attention, and his will was your command. Continue after Christ. To the early church that lost its first love, Jesus commanded: Remember former days, repent of drifting devotions, and return to your first love (Revelation 3:15–22).
Perhaps some questions for reflection may help.
Is anything keeping your gaze below? How are you spending your free time? What do you choose to set your mind upon? What captures your heart? Are there earthly pleasures you cannot live without?
To avoid a downward spiral, you must also look up to heaven. How can you get more of Christ before your eyes? Do you know Christ as worth this pursuit, this prayer, this worship? What promises can you plead before the Lord? He loves to answer his word for those willing to petition him.
As you continue to plead with him to awaken your affections, do not forsake action. Continue to read God’s word, commune with the saints, fast, kill your sin, keep watch against the world’s trifles. But do not rely on these when your heart is failing you. “This is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.”
Faith gives us true sight — the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Faith tutors our affections by continually beholding the object of our faith, the King in his beauty, Jesus Christ. Cry out with Moses that the Lord would show you his glory — the glory of his power, of his goodness, of his worthiness, of his love.
Let me inflict upon you a poem I wrote in my early twenties. I, too, struggled through a dark night of the soul, wondering if my love was genuine. May you find the same patient Lord that I found.
The caterpillar climbs in his cocoon;
Not to be seen again.
Breaking as dawn, a butterfly spawns,
Though still it may pretend.
Try as it will with its earthly pursuits,
Still crawling the time away,
It won’t find much gain in its lowly terrain —
It can try but cannot stay.
Wrap itself up in its cocoon again,
Till day it no longer see,
Wrestle and fight in the deepest of night;
A butterfly still it shall be.
Let it scale the whole world on its stomach,
Deny its celestial wings.
Whether caught by a breeze or pushed from the trees,
In heavenly realms it will sing.
If you are truly new, you will be flying soon enough. You will taste and see (again) that God is not only good but best, that his way is not merely a way but the way. Whether by sweet repentance or painful discipline — you will be caught up by the breeze and soar to happiness you have not yet known.
Desiring God