In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, one of the requirements of all citizens is to feel good.  When they don’t, which is often, they pop pills containing a hangover-free drug called soma, which makes them feel better immediately.  The worse they feel, the more soma they take, and all is well – at least until it isn’t.  But the readily available soma never seems to run out.  For extreme happiness, say on a weekend, larger doses of soma become pleasantly hallucinogenic. 

This is not the world we live in.  Ours is old and seemingly less brave, though we can argue that it takes a lot more courage to live in it.  Our Savior set the example by walking the path of crucifixion, the same path he calls us to in Matthew 16:24-27.

²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

At the end of the day, or the age, really, what we want is to have followed Jesus.  Much of the time this doesn’t involve feeling pleasant, at least not in the way our flesh desires.  Crosses are not meant to be comfortable.  But there is a different type of satisfaction, a type that Huxley’s citizens were never allowed to achieve.  It’s a confidence inspired by following our Savior, of losing our lives in order to find them.  This path has a certainty to it, its satisfaction has a depth, that no amount of soma can give us.

Jim Elliot said it really well when he said, “I may no longer depend on pleasant impulses to bring me before the Lord. I must rather respond to principles I know to be right, whether I feel them to be enjoyable or not.”  

We must not forget, however, that self-denial while following Jesus is only temporary.  It’s the price we pay for discipleship, for walking near to our cross-bearing Lord.  On the other side of the resurrection, we look forward to a cross-free, existence for all eternity in a new heaven, a new earth and a New Jerusalem.