Pleasures For Evermore!

Saturday Ginny picked up her copy of the 7^th Harry Potter book, a copy which she had reserved back in February.

According to tv news, 7,000,000 copies of this book sold within the first 24 hours of its release; at one local mall, over a thousand people stood in line for hours in the rain waiting to buy this book.

After picking up the book, Ginny and I went to Moon River Pizza for lunch. She opened her book to page one, began reading — lost to this world.

Two guys came into Moon River; each carried a copy of Harry Potter. They sat at a table, opened to page one, and fell under that same spell.

Never before have I seen three individuals enthralled reading copies of the same book at the same time in a public place. Once I saw two passengers on the bus each reading copies of Lord of the Rings, but three readers? Never before.

Ginny has hardly spoken a word to me all weekend. She’s engrossed in her book. A daughter came over to borrow money; Ginny did not speak to her. Our neighbor Rick came by to kill time; Ginny read ten feet away from him and never even glanced up from her pages.

All this reading delights me.

Seeing Ginny derive such pleasure from the book pleases me so.

Seeing someone you love get great pleasure from something generates the greatest sort of pleasure for the observer. Blog postings from all over the world reveal how pleased mothers are at seeing their babes enjoy some toy or activity. Seeing my grown children interact and enjoy eachother’s company delights me.

A great lover finds the sexual pleasure he gives his beloved magnifies his own pleasure; he thrills at the expression on her face as waves of pleasure wash over her in orgasm.

Grandparents delight in seeing the grandkids frolic with the new puppy.

Cooks derive great pleasure at watching the family smack their lips with pleasure as they dig in to some special dish it took hours to prepare.

You don’t even have to enjoy a thing yourself to enjoy someone else’s pleasure over it. When Donald was in college studying physics, he’d come home bubbling over with joy as he told me about refraction; I know nothing about refractive lasers, but I got such a kick out of seeing his pleasure in learning.

The ideal motivation for telling others about Christ is to so enjoy Him yourself that you bubble over with pleasure and share the pleasure you’ve found; not to do so would be churlish.

Giving pleasure, seeing someone else’s pleasure, sharing pleasure — All these generate even more pleasure.

God Himself is a hedonist.

The Scripture proclaims, “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore”.

“The Lord taketh pleasure in his people; He will beautify the meek with salvation”

So, I’ve felt in good company all this weekend as I’ve so enjoyed Ginny’s pleasure as she relished reading her book. I take pleasure in seeing her pleasure.

And as I did, I reflected on how much the Lord God of Hosts enjoys seeing his creation enjoy frolics and joys and pleasures and quite reading and water slides and volley ball games and chocolate donuts and prayer and snuggling under the blanket and corn on the cob and fireworks and canoeing and bird watching and work well done and Christmas and moonlight swims and … and… the list goes on forever more.

And it gets even better:

As it is written, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”!

The Lord means us no pain.

He gave us laws to keep us from injuring ourselves.

Hurt was someone else’s idea. Oh yes, there is someone out there who rubs his hands together and chuckles when we hurt ourselves, when we hurt others, when we spread pain, dread, anguish, worry, sadness, evil...

However the looser is loosing; his scorched-earth retreat has set limits, it can not last much longer.

Darkness fades.

Dawn approaches.

Hope remains.

In the mean time, Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.