I have heard many (myself included) say that the Christian life is boring or there are too many rules to Christianity and the rules take away all one's fun. Some folks have even preached that in the Christian life we have to sacrifice and suck it up and give up the "fun life" and the comfortable life now so that we will receive the "big pay out" in the end. Some how we often tend to believe or, at least act as if, we will earn our spot in paradise by giving up all things we desire for awhile to be given all our current desires in Heaven.

What are the Christian ideals? Charity. Hope. Faith. The poor. The mourning. The Meek. Those who hunger & thirst. The merciful. The pure. Peacemakers. The Persecuted. To lay your life down for another. These are all extremely tough. It will take a conversion. It will take a miraculous transformation of my desires. I will have to kill even the smallest selfish, self preservation, or anything that is not of God inside of me. This grain of wheat must first die. I will have to lose even the smallest desire left in me to save my life. Well no wonder Jesus, You have so few friends. And You are upfront and honest about how difficult it will be to follow in your foot steps. How could You hope for many to even try.

However, when I have tired, when I have given up my own selfish desire for the sake of God and other I have realized You have not given me back in payment the selfish desire I had to give up. You have surprise me 100 fold that my “taste” for Charity and dying to self as grown. My desire to give my life away has increased.

You, My Lord are in the processes of fulfilling all of my desires by changing my desire to be for nothing less than You. It is in these moments that I realize paradise will not be the time in which I will be given back all of my old desires, but when all my old desires will cease to exist. No other desire can be satisfied because no other pleasure can sustain the test of eternity.