THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

What is the purpose of life? To pursue pleasure? It seems that too much of any good thing comes with costs. Just think of eating too much food or cake icing. It can make us ill and even harm our health. In fact, it seems that we are even designed to thrive best on a pleasure-limited diet.

For example, I love to smell flowers, but I’ve noticed that their aroma disappears within moments and is no longer available for my enjoyment until I step away for a while. It is the same with listening to a favorite piece of music. As I continually listen to it, it loses its charm. The same thing with sex!

Why are we designed with this limited capacity for sensual pleasure? Perhaps because an unlimited amount of pleasure is not good for us! Perhaps it might even prove addicting! Perhaps because it even takes us away from more important things!

Let me give an example. Although I’ve never tried out for the Olympics, I understand a little about it. The trainer will work his contestant to the point of sacrifice and pain in order to win. The contestants are willing to forego their pleasures, because they have a higher purpose than the pleasures of the things that they must sacrifice in order to win.

Perhaps these principles also pertain to our ordinary lives. We are designed to seek a higher purpose, a meaning for our lives beyond fleshly pleasures. King Solomon was a man who had everything – women, wealth, wisdom, power, and the respect of all who met him, and yet, he was miserable. He wrote:

·       I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18)

As hard as Solomon tried, he was unable to grasp life’s meaning. It was like trying to grasp “the wind.” Instead, his wisdom-quest produced “much sorrow” and “grief.” Why? He wasn’t able to find the key that unlocked life’s meaning. Without any knowledge of eternal life, he knew that his labors and pleasures were all bereft of meaning:

·       For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!  So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. (Ecclesiastes 2:16-21)

Solomon found that a life lived for the pleasures and satisfactions of this life alone became oppressive. He knew that he had to discover the glue that held everything together, but instead, he found that intellect and experience alone were unable to lay hold of it.

Solomon’s emptiness is the story of humankind. Atheist Bertrand Russell believed that humanity could impose their own will and purpose on meaninglessness, filling the emptiness with meaning:

• Undismayed by the empire of chance, [man determines] to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyrant that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces... [He determines] to sustain alone... the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power. (A Free Man’s Worship)

However, there are dreams that will not take wing no matter how confident we might be about them. Years later, Russell confessed that his dreams folded like a rose’s drooping dried pedals:

• I wrote with passion and force because I really thought I had a gospel. Now I am cynical about the gospel because it won’t stand the test of life.

What will stand the test of life? Isaiah had a vision about the Messiah and His source of meaning and purpose. It was a matter of serving the Father:

·       And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear. (Isaiah 11:3)

Instead, the Messiah would delight in judging according to His Father. How is it that servitude can be a delight? For most of us, it sounds like enslavement. However, when we are convinced that we are serving the source of all truth and love, it is more fulfilling than pursuing the autographs of our favorite stars. As Jesus had explained to His disciples, serving the Father was His nourishment:

·       Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. (John 4:34)

Many Christians have experienced this joy when they have ministered the Words of God. There is nothing more ennobling or satisfying. All other joys have a limited shelf-life in comparison.

When we reject this joy, we deprive ourselves and limit our lives to junk food that might satisfy but not for long.