The Silliness Of What We Put Our Joy In
Kamp Krusty has one of the best blog posts I've read in a while speaking of the ridiculous things from which we derive our joy. Don't get me wrong. I like sports; I enjoy watching sports (I'm watching the Suns whup up on the Rockets right now). But when we really speak of the joy derived from sports and then consider its futility and how it may be a distraction from the relative joylessness that we take in God, the greatest good in which we could find our joy, it really puts everything in perspective. Read the quote below and then move on to Piper's quote (on of my alltime favorites) on the soul-shrinking effects of televisoin. Then let's consider what from where we derive our joy, praising God where necessary and repenting where necessary:
I feel good about myself because a sports team a choose to associate myself with has recently experienced success.
This sports team is headquartered in St. Louis, and is a franchise of the most popular professional baseball league in the United States. Last night, it tallied a higher score than a New York-based franchise.
This pleased me greatly.
Why this particular sports team? I feel a certain kinship with these players, because while I am not from St. Louis proper, neither are any of them. Yes, they are considerably richer than me, but we also share a common humanity. They have their servants put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.
I now feel better about me, Brant Hansen. I find myself exhibiting a strange glee and newfound personal confidence. This is because a young Puerto Rican male named Yadier, whom I've never met, swung a stick really hard, with great accuracy.
My heart is full of joy. (Letters from Kamp Krusty)
Now, on to Piper. I do not want to legalistically respond to this statement, but neither should we ignore it.
“If all other variables are equal, your capacity to know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch. There are several reasons for this. One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial. And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul. You get used to it. It starts to seem normal. Silly becomes funny. And funny becomes pleasing. And pleasing becomes soul-satisfaction. And in the end, the soul that is made for God has shrunk to fit snugly around triteness. This may be unnoticed, because if all you’ve known is American culture, you can’t tell there is anything wrong. If you have only read comic books, it won’t be strange that there are no novels in your house. If you live where there are no seasons, you won’t miss the colors of fall. If you watch fifty TV ads each night, you may forget there is such a thing as wisdom. TV is mostly trivial. It seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth. God is the great absolute, all-shaping Reality. If He gets any airtime, He is treated as an opinion. There is no reverence. No trembling. God and all that He thinks about the world is missing. Cut loose from God and everything goes down."