Christian hedonism

i started reading Desiring God by John Piper last night (was supposed to read ch 1 & 2 for my ethics class tonight and managed the preface and introduction...d'oh). the book opens with the line "This is a serious book about being happy in God". i like that, and the way he ties together joy and worship and suffering and perseverance and makes his argument for Christian hedonism very convincing (okay, so i've not read that much of it, but so far i'm hooked...and if you're intrigued by the term 'Christian hedonism' which might seem like an oxymoron to you, get the book and read the explanation). i also like the fact that he quotes CS Lewis a lot. :)

i love it when you start a book and it just clicks with you, and the anticipation of reading the rest of the book makes you want to stop doing everything else until you're finished. don't remember getting many set readings in uni courses that made me feel that way.

i've read it before somewhere, but Piper quotes CS Lewis from The Weight of Glory (and I love this quote):

...if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

CS Lewis quoted in Piper, John, Desiring God, IVP, Leicester, p 20