None of these things are bad in and of themselves. But is that all life is intended to be? Is that the way God designed living our life here on earth to look like?
John Piper, in the book Don't Waste Your Life, takes issue with the prevailing thoughts that life is primarily for our enjoyment. Instead, Piper pleads with his readers to "Make much of God"; that the joy that doing so creates, as well as the grace that we don't deserve, should lead the believer to be willing to risk all for Christ.
I was personally very taken by the story related in this book about Adinoram Judson, who, with his young bride, left the United States to serve God in Burma, only returning one time. That sort of risk of life and wealth and the Western definition of (pseudo)-"happiness" and satisfaction seems to carry with it the kind of lasting contentedness that acknowledges that we are but sojourners in this life on earth-that our home is not here but eternally with God our father.
In reading this book, I have been reminded of a verse that has come to have a great deal of meaning to me personally. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 4:17-18:
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
But until that day when the eternal weight of glory is realized and attained, we are to live in this world. But will our time here be wasted in vain pursuits? In gaining all the "glory" we can gain here on this earth? All the money, the cars, the vacations? Piper urges his readers to evaluate their lives, to give thought to what really matters. To realize that we may be called to give everything--including our lives--in order to make much of God. And that to make much of God is the reason why we were created.
