God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

It didn’t make any sense. I read the line again, more slowly this time: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” I understood each of the words in the sentence, but I couldn’t grasp what they meant together. “What does it mean to be satisfied in God?” “How does my satisfaction relate to God’s glory?” These ideas were so foreign to me it was as though the line were written in Arabic or Icelandic.

This single sentence provoked me to wrestle with God’s glory and my joy, and how the two relate. I was confronted, for the first time, with the idea that God cared about my joy. And not only did he care, but he was seeking to advance, maximize, and stir up my delight in him. As I reflected on this possibility, I found it again and again through the Bible — because it had always been there. Soon, the sentence radically reoriented my life from top to bottom.

Do’s and Don’ts

Over twenty years ago, I had just arrived as a freshman at college, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was five hundred miles from home and eager to begin exercising my adult independence. Having grown up in a faithful Christian home and a mostly Bible-preaching church, I had boiled Christianity down to what I thought were its essentials (at least according to 17-year-old me): duty and rules. I knew I was supposed to obey God’s commands, and I knew I was not to embrace immorality.

I had been taught much more, of course, but my teenage mind focused on the rules and prohibitions. Go to church. Pray. Read the Bible. Don’t have premarital sex. Don’t drink, smoke, or take drugs. Don’t dishonor God — glorify him. But glorifying God was all duty and no delight, like doing chores or homework. It was commanded (1 Corinthians 10:31) — and burdensome.

But during this first year in college, at a Christian fellowship, a small-group leader handed me a copy of Desiring God by John Piper. I hadn’t read many Christian books up to this point. I started it, but the first chapter confused me to no end. The author kept speaking about joy and delight in God. I had never considered that my happiness mattered to God, much less that it was commanded. I didn’t grow up with these as categories.

Could Jesus Make Me Happy?

Sure, we talked about obeying God — not breaking his commands and honoring him with our actions. But we didn’t talk about rejoicing in God or delighting in God. We talked about duty. We talked about picking up your cross and following Jesus down a road of suffering and pain. We talked about denying yourself, putting off the deeds of the flesh, and fighting the fight of faith. We talked much about labor, and little about grace. We quoted, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” but didn’t finish the sentence: “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13).

So, the sentence “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him” was like showing me a five-legged dog or dry water. It didn’t exist in my universe. Christianity is true; therefore I obey. It didn’t matter if I was happy or miserable in that obedience.

Culturally, this approach made a lot of sense. Good grades, hard work, willpower, discipline, and perseverance were drilled into me from a young age. In my cultural milieu, if you got an A-minus on a test, you worked harder next time to get an A or A-plus. I was taught to put in as much time and energy as was needed to accomplish the task. It didn’t matter if I liked it or not. If it was assigned, I needed to do it well.

Yet this mindset was crippling as it bled into my relationship with Jesus, which became mainly transactional. I would read the Bible, hoping for God’s blessing. I’d avoid sin so that I wouldn’t be punished. And when I did sin, my world would come crumbling down around me. How could God possibly love me, much less accept me or forgive me, if I was a wanton sinner?

Treasure Hidden in a Field

This perspective, however, minimized the gospel of the grace of God. It lacked a compelling motivation for my obedience. It lacked substance. Slowly, I began to see that God gives us joy in obeying him, he gives us delight in worship, and he satisfies us with his steadfast love and mercy. My joy is not inconsequential, but rather essential for a life that pleases and glorifies God. Therefore, it’s not just okay to seek joy in God; it’s essential that we find our soul’s satisfaction in Jesus. Or to put it another way, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” And so, we fight for joy in Jesus.

“God gives us joy in obedience, he gives us delight in worship, and he satisfies us with his steadfast love and mercy.”

This idea began to leap off the pages of the Bible. The Psalm 1 man is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord (Psalm 1:2). The commands of the Lord are not burdensome, but life giving (1 John 5:3). God is the one who makes known to us the path of life; in his presence we experience fullness of joy, and at his right hand we get pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man discovers and then sells all that he owns in order to obtain it (Matthew 13:44).

And the fact we are commanded to glorify God doesn’t diminish the reward of it. To say, “Your job is to glorify God” is like telling a newlywed husband or wife, “Your job is to delight yourself in your spouse.” It’s like arriving at a long-awaited vacation and being told, “Your job is to relax and enjoy yourself.” The command to glorify God is a command to delight yourself in him, and the command to delight yourself in him is a command to glorify him. Hand-in-hand, one completes the other.

No Better Place to Be

The sentence summary of Christian Hedonism went from incomprehensible to understandable, and then from understandable to wonderful. My life has never been the same.

“There is no better place to be than following Jesus, obeying God’s commands, and experiencing his smile.”

When preaching the Scriptures now as a pastor, my goal is not to demand obedience for the sake of obedience. I don’t guilt or shame our people into following and sacrificing for Jesus. We don’t send missionaries into the hardest places of the world with threats. Rather, we entice people with the superior pleasures of following Jesus. There is no better place to be than following Jesus, obeying God’s commands, and experiencing his smile.

Jesus is better. Knowing, loving, and being loved by Jesus is better than the lesser pleasures of entertainment. He’s better than scrolling endlessly through the swamp of social media. Joy in Jesus is better than illicit pleasures, chemically induced highs, and the riches that our world holds out on a platter of death. Obedience to Jesus, participation in his church, and identification with his body is better than the temporary accolades and acceptance of those around us. Lesser pleasures fade in comparison to the growing and greater pleasure of being satisfied in God. And wonder of wonders, that pleasure glorifies God.

When we come to Jesus, we receive everlasting joy that is rooted in a hope that never disappoints. We are promised an eternal hope, a forever home, an incorruptible kingdom, a superior pleasure, and an everlasting joy. This is the reality of following Jesus. Comprehend the incomprehensibly glorious truth that we have been created and designed to find our ultimate joy and satisfaction in Jesus. And as we delight ourselves in him, God is rightly glorified, honored, and praised.

Ever since Eden, God has given children a crucial role in the coming of his kingdom. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring,” God told the serpent (Genesis 3:15). And so, ever since Eden, there has also been a long and desperate war on children.

The biblical story shows us just how ruthless this world’s anti-child forces can become: Pharaoh casting Israel’s sons in the Nile (Exodus 1:22). Demonic “gods” bidding parents to pass their children through fire (Jeremiah 19:4–5). Herod slaughtering Bethlehem’s boys (Matthew 2:16).

Our own society is not above such bloodshed: more than sixty million invisible headstones (from the last fifty years, and still counting) fill America’s fields. Much of the modern West’s aversion to children appears, however, in subtler forms. Today, we are having fewer children than ever, later than ever. We diminish, and sometimes outright despise, stay-at-home motherhood. And too often, we treat children as mere accessories to our individualism: valuable insofar as they buttress our personal identity and further our personal goals — otherwise, inconvenient.

As Christians, we may be tempted to assume that this war on children exists only out there. But even when we turn from the world of secular individualism and carefully consider ourselves — our hearts, our homes, our churches — we may find strange inclinations against children. We may discover that anti-child forces can hide in the most seemingly pro-child places. And we may realize, as Jesus’s disciples once did, that children need a larger place in our lives.

Pro-Child on Paper

As with most Christians today, the disciples of Jesus grew up in a largely pro-child culture. Their views of children may not have been as sentimental as ours sometimes are, but they knew kids played a key role in God’s purposes. They remembered God’s promise to send a serpent-crushing son (Genesis 3:15). They regularly recited the command to teach God’s word “diligently to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:4–9). They cherished God’s faithfulness to a thousand generations (Exodus 34:7).

But then, one day, some actual children approach the disciples. And as Jesus watches how his men respond, he feels an emotion nowhere else attributed to him in the Gospels: indignation.

They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant. (Mark 10:13–14)

The disciples likely had the best of intentions. To them, these children (or their parents) were acting inappropriately; they were coming at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Not now, children — the Master has business to attend to. They were about to discover, however, that far from distracting the Master from his business, children lay near the heart of the Master’s business.

In the process, they also warn us that claiming a pro-child position does not mean living a pro-child life. You can theoretically value children and practically neglect them. You can say on paper, “Let the children come,” while saying with your posture, “Let the children keep their distance.” You can look with disdain on the anti-child forces in the world and, meanwhile, overlook the precious children in your midst.

We, like the disciples, may hold pro-child positions. Our churches may have pro-child programs. But actually being pro-child requires far more than a position or a program: it requires the very heart and posture of Christ.

Heart of Christ for Children

“Jesus loved children with a grand and profound love,” Herman Bavinck writes (The Christian Family, 43). And do we? Answering that question may require a closer look at our Lord’s response when the little children came to him.

How might we become more like this Man who made his home among the children, this almighty Lord of the little ones? Among the various pro-child postures we see in Mark 10:13–16, consider three.

1. Presence

First, Jesus created a warm and welcoming presence for children.

Something in the demeanor of Jesus suggested that this Lord was not too large for little children. Young ones apparently hung around him with ease, such that he could spontaneously take a child “in his arms” while resting with his disciples in Capernaum (Mark 9:36). Later, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, children gladly follow him, shouting their hosannas (Matthew 21:15–16). And then in our scene, parents and children approach him apparently without hesitation (Mark 10:13).

“Something in the demeanor of Jesus suggested that this Lord was not too large for little children.”

What about Jesus communicated such an unthreatening welcome? We might note the times he helped and healed children, like the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:41–42) or the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:14–15). Yet these stories are also examples of a far larger pattern in Jesus’s ministry, which was noticeably bent toward those the world might consider “little”: lepers, demoniacs, tax collectors, prostitutes. He was not haughty, but associated with the lowly (Romans 12:16). And children, seeing this lover of lowliness, knew they were not too lowly for him.

If we too want to become a welcome presence for children, we might begin by bending ourselves toward lowliness in general. Upon entering our Sunday gatherings and small groups, and as we move through our cities, do we see the lost and lonely, the bruised and broken? Do we wrap gentleness around vulnerability and bestow honor on weakness? If so, children are likely to notice our humble, bent-down hearts, a presence low enough for them to reach.

2. Priority

Second, Jesus made children a practical priority, giving them generous amounts of his time and attention.

If anyone had good reason to shuffle past the children — “Sorry, kids, not now” — it was Jesus. No one had higher priorities or a loftier mission. No one’s time was more valuable. Yet no one gave his priorities or his time so patiently to those we might see as distractions. On his way to save the world, our Lord paused and “took [the children] in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them” (Mark 10:16). His life and ministry were full, but not too full for children.

In our own lives, prioritizing children calls for active planning, a willingness to devote portions of our schedule to play and pretend. But as Jesus shows us, prioritizing children also calls for responsive receiving, or what we might call living an interruptible life.

Children are master interrupters. Tugs on the jeans and cries from the crib, impulsive addresses and immodest stompings — kids have a way of ruining well-laid plans. The more like Jesus we become, however, the more readily we will embrace our ruined plans as part of God’s good plan. And we will remember that if Jesus could pause to linger with little children, then we too can pause our own important tasks, bend down on a knee, and give children the eye-level attention of Christ.

3. Prayer

Third, Jesus prayed and pursued children’s spiritual welfare.

When the children came to Jesus, he not only received them and held them; he not only looked at them and spoke to them. He also laid his hands on them and, in the presence of his Father, bestowed a benediction upon their little heads (Mark 10:16).

We don’t know how old the children were, but they were young enough to be brought by their parents (Mark 10:13). They were young enough, too, that the disciples apparently saw little spiritual potential in them. Not so with Jesus. The Lord who loves to the thousandth generation sees farther than we can: he can discern in a child’s face the future adult and budding disciple; he can plant seeds of prayer in fields that may not bear fruit for many years.

Do we invest such patient spiritual care in children? When we pray for our friends, do we bring their little ones, by name, before the throne of grace as well? Do we find creative ways not only to joke and play with the kids in our churches, but also to share Jesus with them in thoughtful, age-appropriate ways? And do our evangelistic efforts take into account the not-yet-believers walking knee-high among us?

Oh, that each of us, parents or not, would join the mothers and fathers in Mark 10, desperate to hand our children into the blessed arms of Christ. When we hear him say, “Let the children come,” may we respond, “We will bring them.”

Posture, Not Programs

If our treatment of children looks more like the disciples’ than our Lord’s, then our problem, at heart, is that we are not yet children at heart. “Let the children come to me,” he says, “for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:14–15). We have become too big; we have outgrown grace. For the doorway into the kingdom is small — so small that we can enter only if we kneel to the height of a little child.

To oppose the anti-child forces in this world, we need more than a pro-life position, a high view of motherhood, and a robust Sunday school program. All these we may have and more, and yet still become the objects of Jesus’s indignation.

We need a posture, a spirit, a kinship with the living Christ, who left the highest place for the lowest, who became a child so we might become children of God. The more we love Jesus, the more we will love children. The more like him we become, the more powerfully will our presence, our priorities, and our prayers say, “Let the children come to him” — and the more the children will come.

After nearly 35 years on the mission field, Adoniram Judson reflected on what compelled churches in New England to send him and his wife, Ann, to Burma. “American Christians pledged themselves to the work of evangelizing the world,” he wrote. “They had but little to rest on except the command and promise of God.”1

If trusting in God’s promises served to launch the missionaries, is this also the secret to what sustained them? “We’re resting on the promises of God” sounds like something a missionary should say. Yet for the Judsons, it was more than mere sentiment. The promises of God represented a rock-solid foundation of hope that strengthened them through excruciating trials — trials that began even before their ship docked in Burma.

Painful Arrival

In 1813, the Judsons were living in India, seeking mentorship from William Carey and giving thought to their future location for missionary service. However, complications for Americans living abroad (in light of the War of 1812) compelled them to leave sooner than expected. Adoniram and Ann, now with child, scrambled to find a ship headed for Burma, only to find their stress and challenges increase. Ann’s delivery nurse passed away on board, and this lack of aid compounded with the rapid decline of Ann’s health. Tragedy culminated in the stillborn arrival of the baby while at sea.

Fatigued and downcast, the Judsons arrived in Burma, a country known for its political corruption and bloody punishments for even the smallest of crimes.2 They found the city flooded with water, hidden by fog, and “gloomy and distressing.”3

“Where the Burmese constructed skylines of Buddhist pagodas for worship, Judson saw foundations for future churches.”

Despite the gloom, the Judsons did not run away from, but leaned into, their trust in the promises of God. Where the Burmese constructed skylines of Buddhist pagodas for worship, Judson saw foundations for future churches. He reported that he “took a survey of the splendid pagodas. . . . The churches of Jesus will soon supplant these idolatrous monuments, and the chanting of the devotees of [Buddha] will die away before the Christian hymn of praise.”4

Labor and Loss

The Judsons were welcomed to their living accommodations by Felix Carey, son of the British missionary, who had labored there without success for four years. As Carey and his family were soon to relocate to another city, the Judsons started their ministry without a support network. Further, they had no training books in Burmese to guide them.

Driven by the need for the Burmese to have a translation of the Bible, the Judsons devoted themselves first to learning the language. From these rudimentary beginnings, Adoniram, ever the linguist, invested twelve hours a day in exhausting effort amid the abundant humidity and insects.5 Further, the Judsons labored without any other English speakers, learning to rely on one another.

After eighteen months, Ann was expecting and, again, her health began to deteriorate. Without doctors or medical books, the Judsons determined to send her to nearby India for help. Adoniram pressed on in her absence as they both endured her four-month journey. Thankfully, she returned strengthened.

In September 1815, the Judsons received mail from the States for the first time in two years. They learned that their former companion, Luther Rice, had organized the Baptist Churches in America to form a new mission board, and that board appointed the Judsons as their first missionaries. This brought a conclusion to two years of uncertainty regarding their funding and church support, following their convictional decision to embrace believer’s baptism after arriving in India. Following this encouraging report, days later Ann gave birth to Roger Williams Judson, with Adoniram serving as her sole doctor and nurse.6

Yet this season of joy proved short-lived, as fever took Roger Judson after just eight months. Adoniram wrote in a letter home, “Our little Roger died last Saturday morning. . . . This is the fourth day, and we just begin to think, What can we do for the heathen? . . . O may we not suffer in vain! May this bereavement be sanctified to our souls!”7

Preaching the Promises

Despite another tragedy, the Judsons’ work continued. By July, Adoniram completed his Burmese grammar, followed by a brief tract that served as the first presentation of Christian doctrine in Burmese. In it, one can see a picture of the Judsons’ foundation of faith — the promises and Promiser on which they were resting.

Beginning with a description of God as triune, eternal, omnipresent, and all-powerful, the Creator of all, Adoniram explained the fall of man and the need for God the Father to send God the Son to “deliver all his disciples from the punishment of hell” by his atoning sacrifice. The resurrected Jesus Christ then commissioned his disciples to go into all the earth to “proclaim the glad news to all men.”

Adoniram explained that this glad news spread to the west and now to the east, to Burma, where “a teacher of religion, from the country of America, has arrived, and is beginning to proclaim the glad news.” Adoniram’s view of the end times led him to proclaim that within two hundred years all the false religions would disappear and “the religion of Christ will pervade the whole world.”8 While one may differ with his eschatology, one cannot doubt the fortitude of his conviction that one day Christ would stay true to his promise and return to reign with his people.

Though making progress in translation and persevering in trying circumstances, the Judsons still felt pressure from supporters in the States to defend the lack of conversions. Writing to Rice, Adoniram conceded that even though Burma was a hard and resistant place, he trusted in God’s sovereignty, sharing his confidence that “there is an Almighty and faithful God who will perform his promises.”9

“Judson wanted only those who had forsaken the world and rested alone on the promises of God.”

These hardships of life and ministry in Burma refined Adoniram’s thoughts on what kind of people should serve as missionaries. Writing again to Rice, who was active in recruiting new missionaries, Judson counseled him to find “humble, quiet, persevering men . . . willing to take the lowest place . . . who live near to God and are willing to suffer all things for Christ’s sake.”10 Judson wanted only those who had forsaken the world and rested alone on the promises of God.

Start of the Harvest

Since the death of Roger Judson, Adoniram suffered from severe head and eye pain to the degree that it hurt to hear Ann read to him. He nevertheless persevered and completed a translation of the Gospel of Matthew into Burmese, as well as a Burmese dictionary, in May 1817. Yet the pain persisted, and he determined he needed medical attention. In December, he set off for Bengal by boat. This journey would take several detours and incur delays, such that it was eight months before he returned.

In that time, Ann’s trials continued, though she was aided by a new couple who had come to join their work. Under the threat of cholera and potential war with England, Ann faced several challenges, including uncertainty as to Adoniram’s whereabouts and whether she should stay. Just as she was close to leaving the country and their work, Adoniram returned and, in the months ahead, another couple arrived to lend aid.11

In April 1819, the Judsons finally saw signs of spiritual growth. During this season, Adoniram started public worship in Burmese and set up a booth, known as a zayat, located in a well-traveled venue near the Shway Dagon Pagoda. There he labored openly as a missionary, distributed his tract, and preached. These efforts welcomed the Judsons’ first convert, Moung Nau, who “drank in the truths of the gospel, and gave his heart, we trust, to the Lord Jesus.”12 After six years of hard sowing, God’s faithfulness to his promises allowed the Judsons to see the start of a harvest.

Three Lessons for Missionaries

How did the Judsons survive these challenging years? What exactly did it mean for them to rest on the promises of God? In 1832, Adoniram responded to an inquiry from the States to give advice to those considering missionary service. His remarks show some practical ways he maintained his hope.

First, don’t be surprised by initial discouragements. Adoniram cautioned that “you will be met with disappointments and discouragements . . . which will lead you, at first, almost to regret that you have embarked in the cause. . . . Beware, therefore, of the reaction you will experience from a combination of all these causes, lest you become disheartened at commencing your work.”13

Second, don’t let fatigue lead you into temptation. Adoniram warned of a pull toward ease “after you have acquired the language and become fatigued and worn out with preaching the gospel to a disobedient and gainsaying people.”14 He explained that fatigue often causes the missionary to want to seek another, more comfortable, pursuit, and Satan will likely comply to tempt with such an opportunity.

Third, don’t let secret pride take root. Evan Burns shares that Adoniram grew fond of jumping rope as the “best kind of exercise” and saw maintaining physical health as vital to ensure he could maximize each day for spiritual tasks.15 Yet Judson knew that survival on the mission field did not solely come by means of physical health. He admonished future missionaries to guard their spiritual health and to “beware of pride; not the pride of proud men, but the pride of humble men — the secret pride which is apt to grow out of the consciousness that we are esteemed by the great and good.”16

In the early twentieth century, a missions professor remarked that Adoniram Judson’s life had the effect “not only in drawing men into service, but rather more, perhaps, in sustaining men in service.”17 The lives of Adoniram and Ann Judson still serve as a living testimony to God’s faithfulness, continuing to sustain and prompt many to rest on the promises of God.