When I was growing up, I definitely did not equate religion with pleasure. Pleasure to me looked like doing tons of things I shouldn’t do without getting caught. As I reflect on why I did that, there were some things internally that I was escaping from. Fears…anxieties…insecurities. The purpose and method behind the pleasures that we have in life say a great deal about us. Proverbs 10:23 says…

A fool finds pleasure in wicked schemes, but a person of understanding delights in wisdom.

What do you find enjoyable and why? The true joy that I find in life comes from being engaged in eternal and purposeful activity. I find true joy in spending time with my wife and kids. I absolutely love growing on the inside in my relationship with God. I love living in freedom and helping others to do the same.

On the other hand…that’s not always the case. When I’m not doing well on the inside, I begin to crave cheaper pleasures from external sources. Nothing crazy because I’ve given up the broken activities that I engaged in when I was growing up, but I still have a tendency to make small compromises. I’ll eat more junk food. I’ll watch too much TV. I’ll spend too much time on social media. Basically, I’ll compromise. What I’m saying in those instances is, “I can’t seem to find joy where I need to find joy so I’m going to escape and settle for cheaper and fleeting joys elsewhere.”

We all make compromises. We all struggle with wanting to escape. The only course of action if we want to live life to the fullest is to dive into the fray. We have to figure out why we’re escaping. We have to figure out why we’re compromising for a life that we don’t really want to live. The answers may be difficult but that’s better than the alternative.

We get to choose where we find pleasure. We get to choose what we delight in. If we choose wisely on a consistent basis, we’ll find life yielding pleasures that will fill us from the inside out. If however, we choose to settle, we’ll saturate ourselves with more and more temporary pleasures that will always leave us wanting.