The Enjoyment of God

“The good use the world that they may enjoy God; the wicked, on the contrary, wish to use God that they may enjoy the world,” said Saint Augustine.

The notion of the enjoyment of God is the end of the Christian living. God created us so that we can worship and enjoy Him in Christ through the fellowship of the Spirit. When we are able to enjoy the goodness of God in life, we place the creation in its rightful place in which we are mere stewards of God. We who enjoy God as the ultimate end are conscious of the fact that the world that God created cannot give us everlasting satisfaction. The world is a means to an end. The goal of Christian living is not to enjoy anything that is lesser than the Creator. The world itself is not the source of our happiness. True happiness comes from the Creator—the source of the world.

The wicked who wish to enjoy the world by using God deliberately choose the lesser god to worship. They are wicked because they worship the lesser god and give up the real source of happiness. The wicked choose the means by treating it as the end. They reverse the order of creation and devote themselves to this pattern of disorder. They then become what they worship: they are lesser than they were originally created in the beginning. They are wicked in this sense because they give up the goodness of God and allow the lesser gods to fill up their unfulfilled longings, which only God can satisfy.

For those who enjoy God as the end, they are found by God. Any knowledge of God is transformative. In order to find God, we are found by God. Once we are obtained by God, we are being gradually transformed into His likeness. Thus, the enjoyment of God is to know and be known by God. The knowledge of God ought to be a transforming power to savor our tastes to enjoy God. We enjoy God by knowing Him. Such an enjoyment will lead us to be like Him. Those who enjoy God as the end of being delightfully transformed into His likeness will never use God to enjoy the world, for they understand that the world can never give them such a delight in following, knowing, and being known by God.

For the good, the world is always a playground to enjoy God as the Creator, Provider, and Sustainer. The world is always the creation of God in which they live out the goal of their lives. In other words, apart from this world, the good cannot practice the enjoyment of God. However, while they are in the world, their enjoyment in God is far more superior to anything that the world can give.