What pleases God?

But does the running of the runner please God, really? Does the playing of the saxophone please God, or is it just blowing his own trumpet? Does the art of the artist, or the work of the worker please him? Does what you do bring pleasure to God - do you know his delight?

What can we offer to God that will please him, after all? Some people are very hard to please, and God appears very much to be one of those. It isn't like he hasn't got everything already. What does he lack that I could presume to give him?

It's an ancient problem; and its why human beings have always offered sacrifices in the hope that God would be pleased - that he would look favourably on the offerer of the gift. The sacrifice is proof of the offerer's devotion - and pretty much all human cultures have had them. To offer sacrifices is an almost instinctual human action.

The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 revolves around two competing sacrifices - and the meat that Abel brought pleased God, whereas Cain's fruit and veg did not. It seems so unfair, and the text of the Bible doesn't give us much of a clue as to why God approved of Abel and not of Cain. What did Cain do wrong? Do we not have some sympathy for the first murderer?

Later of course Israel would be given a whole elaborate system of sacrifices by God himself, a system which was to govern their whole lives. But these sacrifices were reminders that the human problem was not only a matter of not knowing how to please God - it was knowing how to placate him. Human sinfulness meant that atonement needed to be made, not to please God but to appease him. So far are human beings from delighting the creator.