Made for This
Q: What is the chief end of man?
A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
— Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 1
Most of us were taught that the point of life is to achieve, to serve, to make a difference. The catechism doesn’t disagree, exactly. But it starts somewhere else. With the doing, there is the being. With the serving, there is the enjoying.
That word enjoy stops me every time.
We expect to read “obey” or “honor” or “worship.” Those words carry weight. They sound appropriately serious, appropriately reverent. They match our instinct that the relationship between creature and Creator should feel like duty more than delight. We know how to do duty. We can measure it, report on it, feel reasonably satisfied when we’ve discharged it. Duty is manageable.
But the Shorter Catechism doesn’t offer enjoyment as the reward we receive after we’ve done the serious work of glorifying God. It presents them together, as one thing. Glorifying God and enjoying Him are not sequential. They are simultaneous. They are, in fact, the same motion aimed at the same end.
This should stop us cold.
If the chief end of man is to enjoy God, then a joyless Christianity is not just an unfortunate personality trait in certain believers. It misrepresents God. It tells a watching world that knowing Him is a burden to be borne rather than a gift to be received. It reduces the gospel to a transaction: your sin for His forgiveness, your obedience for His approval. Clean, efficient, and almost entirely beside the point.
John Piper put it this way: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” You may find that framing helpful or you may want to push back on it, but the Westminster divines were there first. They wrote it into the very first question of the catechism, as if to say: get this wrong and everything else will be slightly off.
And they had good reason. The Psalms alone are saturated with the language of delight — taste and see that the Lord is good, take delight in the Lord, in His presence is fullness of joy. And doesn’t the Garden of Eden seem like it was made for it? The catechism didn’t invent this idea. It borrowed it from Scripture.
The question is worth sitting with personally. Do you enjoy God? Not do you believe in Him or love Him or serve Him faithfully, though all of those matter. But do you enjoy Him? Is there something in your relationship with God that functions like delight? If the answer is yes, that is worth naming and nurturing. If the answer is not yet, that is not a reason for shame. It is an invitation.
On days when joy in the Lord is a little harder to find, crowded out by the things of this world, try turning your eyes upon Jesus and starting there — with who He is and what He has done for you.
We were made for this. Not just to serve God, but to enjoy Him. Forever.
