Finding Greater Joy Than Lust: Taste and See That the Lord Is Good

When I talk about finding "greater joys" to overwhelm old desires, a lot of men hear that and think, "Okay, so this is just read your Bible more, pray more, go to church more." Like I'm about to hand you a longer quiet time as the solution to lust.

I'm not. And I want to be clear, because this misunderstanding actually keeps men stuck.

Something more fundamental than a quiet time

Reading Scripture, praying, gathering with God's people, those things are good. You should do them. They're not optional for a healthy walk with God. But if all I mean by "greater joy" is "more religious activity," I haven't actually said anything new, I've just repackaged willpower with a Bible verse attached. That's sometimes called a spiritual bypass: using spiritual language and disciplines to skip past something instead of actually addressing it.

I'm talking about enjoying God in and through what He's already given you. Not instead of Him, through Him. Community. Conversation. Games with your kids. Music that moves you. A good story. Art that stops you in your tracks. Your marriage. Your wife's body. All of it, every legitimate pleasure, was never meant to compete with God. It was meant to point to Him.

One important caution: any of these gifts can become an idol if you love the creature more than the Creator, if you start drawing your ultimate satisfaction from the gift instead of the Giver. Enjoy these things as gifts that lead you to God, not replacements for Him.

But with that guardrail in place, here's the actual point: God doesn't call you to stop enjoying things. He calls you to deepen your enjoyment, by seeing all of it as connected to Him.

The garden had hundreds of trees

Picture the garden of Eden. God didn't put one tree there and tell Adam and Eve to stare at it and grit their teeth. He put hundreds of fruit trees, an entire landscape of flavor and color and abundance, and only one, out of all of them, was off-limits.

But you know the story. The serpent shows up, and somehow the conversation narrows down to the one tree they couldn't have. All that abundance, and their eyes lock onto the single "no."

Here's what I wish had happened instead. I wish Adam had turned to Eve and said, "Let's shake this snake. Let's go on a tasting tour." I wish they'd walked the garden tree by tree, actually tasting what God had given them, because that's exactly what was sitting in front of them. Hundreds of "yeses," and a single "no" hijacked the whole conversation.

That's what the enemy still does today. He gets you staring at the one tree, narrowing your whole field of vision down to the thing you can't have, while an entire garden of legitimate joy sits untouched around you.

You need a bigger table, not less appetite

John Piper has written about this exact dynamic: his point, as I understand it, is that a lack of desire for God isn't usually a sign someone has already found deep satisfaction. It's a sign they've been quietly filling up on lesser things for so long that there's no appetite left for what actually satisfies.

Read that again slowly. It's not that you desire too much. It's that you've been filling up on too little. Snacking on small things until there's no room left for the great feast that was always available.

So here's your invitation today, not another discipline to add to your list, but a shift in how you see everything God has already given you. Your marriage. Your friendships. Your work. Music. Beauty. Laughter. Taste it. Actually taste it. Receive it as coming from His hand, and let it point you back to Him.

You don't need less appetite. You need a bigger table, with more that is good on it. And God has already set one in front of you.

Open your eyes. Enjoy. Eat. Laugh. Celebrate. Go have sex with your wife.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

This is Day 39 of Victory Over Pornography. Day 40 splits into two versions: continue to Day 40 for married men → or continue to Day 40 for unmarried men →