Self-denial is never a virtue in itself. It has the value precisely in proportion to the superiority of the reality embraced above the one denied.  -Piper

The world has an inconsolable longing. It tries to satisfy the longing with scenic vacations, accomplishments of creativity, stunning cinematic productions, sexual exploits, sports extravaganzas, hallucinogenic drugs, ascetic rigors, managerial excellence, et cetera. But the longing remains. What does this mean?

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world.

It was when I was happiest that I longed most.... The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from. 

The tragedy of the world is that the echo is mistaken for the Original Shout. When our back is to the breathtaking beauty of God, we cast a shadow on the earth and fall in love with it. But it does not satisfy.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistake for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

I have written this book b/c the breathtaking Beauty has visited us: "The wWord became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory [His beauty!], glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). How can we not cry, "Look!" -Piper and Lewis