From John Piper’s book “Desiring God,” I resonated with this section because I have lately felt the frustration of reaching the end of all my “mountains.” I’ve been unhappy and guilt-ridden at my unsatisfaction in life, when I have so much to be grateful for. The unsatisfaction has driven me to seek lesser things (”exciting” tech news stories, driving fast, etc..) when I had a thrilling lifelong set of challenges right there. I think the key is that I forgot myself in the world. I forgot that the gnawing void of dissatisfaction cannot be filled in this world; no, we are on a climb that only reaches the peak when we meet Christ in the next. So I’m off now, to work on this internal mountain, knowing that I will experience intense joy and grief intermingled until I’m together with the object of my climb.

Conquering the Internal Mountain of Pride

There is an analogy here to a powerful motive that exists in unbelieving hearts as well. Virtually all people outside Christ are possessed by the desire to find happiness by overcoming some limitation in their lives and having the sensation of power. Heinrich Harrer, a member of the first team to climb the north wall of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps, confessed that his reason for attempting such a climb was to overcome a sense of insecurity. “Self-confidence,” he said, “is the most valuable gift a man can possess . . . but to possess this true confidence it is necessary to have learned to know oneself at moments when one was standing at the very frontier of things…. On the `Spider’ in the Eiger’s North Face, I experienced such borderline situations, while the avalanches were roaring down over us, endlessly.”

The all-important difference between the non-Christian and the Christian Hedonist in this pursuit of joy is that the Christian Hedonist has discovered that self-confidence will never satisfy the longing of his heart to overcome finitude.

He has learned that what we are really made for is not the thrill of feeling our own power increase, but the thrill of feeling God’s power increase-conquering the precipices of un-love in our sinful hearts.

As I said in the letter to my friend Ronn, it is an indictment of our own worldliness that we feel more exhilaration when we conquer an external mountain of granite in our own strength than when we conquer the internal mountain of pride in God’s strength. The miracle of Christian Hedonism is that overcoming obstacles to love by the grace of God has become more enticing than every form of self-confidence. The joy of experiencing the power of God’s grace defeating selfishness is an insatiable addiction.