We often fail to engage with God in our daily lives because of the awe and reverence that we hold for Him. This is not to refute the fact that as Christians and true believers it is our duty to revere and worship Him but in our reverence, we sometimes forget to delight in his presence. We borrow God’s name and use it for our purposes only, though we seem to know that God is inevitable every moment. We need God every moment but there are moments when we distance ourselves from Him in the process of keeping Him sacred. That appears to be our dilemma. We need to enjoy God rather than fear Him. God is someone to be loved and enjoyed, not feared. God did not call us to servitude but to make us His children.
In the days of our forefathers, before preparing a plot of land for cultivation, those who followed animistic practices would offer a prayer to the spirit of the land. It went something like this: ‘We have chosen this place for cultivation this year. Please turn away and rest facing the other side. Do not trouble us until the harvest is complete. We will offer you what is due.’ In essence, this prayer reflected a desire to keep the deity at a distance, seeking protection from any harm or misfortune that might affect the harvest.”. In contrast, the Christian God does not desire to remain aloof from humans. God is in constant search for humans even when humans had a fall and separated themselves from God. Jesus considers his followers and the church as intimately related to God as God’s bride. The front page of a concise booklet of Christian teaching (The Shorter Catechism of the Church of Christ in England) displays a quote which no reader can overlook: “The chief end of man (sic) is to glorify God and enjoy him forever”, which means that the purpose of human existence is to glorify God (e.g., 1 Cor.10:31) but also to enjoy Him forever(Psalms 73:25 & 26; Eccl.2:25;1 Tim 6:17; to cite a few). Paul’s Letter to the Philippians is sometimes considered a book of Joy. John wrote to the Christians of his time saying the purpose of his writing was that the readers joy may be full (1 Jn.1:4).
“To enjoy God” is as serious a mandate from God as to glorify God. Many Christians are of the view that expressions like “enjoy”, “pleasure” or even “fun” are expressions alien to divine. Even as the joy of the Lord is our strength our complete joy is God’s pleasure. Christianity is often called a religion of joy. When the joy is put in verb form as ‘Enjoy’ that is the human experience of God. Only God can give us the real joy or to enjoy anything. Our loving God has called us not to be slaves but to make us children of God. God does not want to see us fasting or starving to die. God wants us to eat to remain strong and live and work for God. Many Christians think that a life of servitude to God entails a life that is life-negating and world-negating devoid of fun, pleasure and enjoyment. The truth is, God called us to be His inheritance and enjoy life in God’s abundance of life. The enjoyment here refers to the delight of being with God, not enjoyment that trespasses God’s law.
For many people the state of enjoyment refers to the fun of eating, drinking and merrymaking. God does not want us to indulge in gluttony and drunkenness but He wants us to enjoy the fruits of our labor which is also divine provision. While some Christians assume that God is pleased by visible acts of piety like fasting, frugality, and austerity, Jesus indicated that such practices are not required when the bridegroom is present (Matthew 6: 1-4). There is no moment when Christ the bridegroom is not in the believer’s life. This is not to rule out fasting from religious practice, but rather to invoke its proper use. At times our religiosity surpasses our spirituality. There is a booklet titled, “Lord, do not disturb me for a moment, I am going to pray”. When Jesus is with us, the appropriate response is joy rather than deprivation. There is no moment when Jesus cannot be with us. To please him or to worship him we do not need to strip ourselves of life’s comfort and pleasure resulted from our godly living. This does not mean that we should take our right to relate with God in the sense of the ideas propagated by ‘Prosperity Gospel’. Such principles of relating with God would be, as Wayne E. Oates, a renowned Pastor and psychotherapist called, an “extractive relationship” rather than a relationship filled with love (Agape). It would mean we relate to Jesus only to obtain blessings from him.
When we say we should not only glorify God but also enjoy God it includes enjoying all the conditions and situations of godliness, including enjoying His cross. The cross bearing is now made easier for us as Jesus has gone through the most painful experience involved in it. We are left with only one condition, “to believe” in that fact of Jesus’ death for us. As we are in the season of Lent now we also think of the pain of cross bearing which cannot be compromised but since Jesus has gone through it we can also pass through it keeping in mind that Jesus has pioneered the way of the cross. That itself will be an enjoyable experience rather than a compelled sacrifice. For many Christians following Jesus means observing certain laws, relinquishing much of life’s pleasures and remaining chained by austerity, prohibitions and otherworldly mindset. When we put on the law of Love even the pain of the cross will be an experience of enjoyment because it is a process where the believer shares and experiences the pain of God.
If our land was a land where we enjoyed God rather than fearing and isolating God, we would be experiencing a Christ-ruled land and people. We have enough materials and rituals that, ironically, keep God away from our daily lives, some of them being excessive fasting and revival programs, designating specific places of prayer and persons to pray for others, loud prayers and costly church buildings to entertain the divine. These practices are mostly ritualistic in nature and exhibits a superficial religiosity which takes away the quality from our spirituality. We hardly realize that as church officials we raise huge amount of money from the poor believers to build monuments bearing our names. Do the poor and needy of the church really enjoy God or consider God as a burden? The best experience of the believer’s community is when the poorest and the neglected people experience God as their equal and their real friend. The annunciation at the birth of Christ was that the birth of Christ was news of great joy. When this news of great joy was experienced by believers it became a song of Joy to the world. There is no reason why the presence of Christ in a person’s life should not make that life a life of enjoyment, not a burden. God wants us to glorify God by our life and also to enjoy divine companionship. Let our respect for God not go to the extent of leaving God outside our daily lives. Let us engage God in our daily lives, enjoy God’s relationship with us each moment. Such acts of reclaiming our personal relationship with God will turn our land to a more Christ centered land filled with God-fearing people. Our land will then become a land where God is loved and enjoyed rather than feared and appeased off.
Ezamo Murry,
Model Village, 5th Mile,
Chumoukedima
Wednesday, March 25, 2026