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For this past weekend’s Easter ser­vice, I was thrilled that Acts of Wor­ship put together a drama. For those not present, it was an encounter between “Justin” and “Michelle” — two con­trast­ing char­ac­ters bear­ing a slight resem­blance to the sis­ters Martha and Mary (Lk 10:38 – 41) except with a few twists to increase both the ambi­gu­ity and challenge.

Both are believ­ers, though Justin only nom­i­nally so (or at worst, a hedo­nist). Michelle is a faith­ful believer, com­mit­ted to serv­ing (slav­ing?) at church. By the end of the encounter, Justin declares that he is happy while Michelle is left won­der­ing, “Am I happy?”

While it’s easy to say Justin is mis­guided — we’ve heard plenty of ser­mons about that — I’m just as pas­sion­ate in say­ing Michelle is mis­guided as well. (Isa 1:11 echoes here.) Justin seek­ing plea­sure in the world misses his true and last­ing joy. Michelle serv­ing the church and yet won­der­ing about hap­pi­ness also misses her true and last­ing joy.

The trick to the drama is the per­son we don’t see. The miss­ing char­ac­ter in the drama is actu­ally ever-present. Because he is not depicted does not mean he is not there. And because we don’t see him, we open the door to won­der about hap­pi­ness and joy.

I’m speak­ing of God, of course. God is the “all-satisfying Object“[1] who, if we lose sight of then ques­tions about hap­pi­ness or “Is it worth it?” creep in. Los­ing sight of God or think­ing he isn’t in the story drains our joy and hol­lows out our ser­vice. In Martha and Mary’s story, Jesus stands right there and it is plain as day who is in the right place. His pres­ence is all-satisfying and awe-inspiring. We are to bask in him, soak in him and then serve to make him known to any­one with the ears to hear.

This, then, is what this web­site is all about: To seek a God-entranced Vision of All Things. To lift my dull eyes to see God at the begin­ning, mid­dle and end of all things. Any­thing less is just not worth the time.

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[1] John Piper quot­ing C.S. Lewis in Desir­ing God.