Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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A Lesson in Desire
By Justin at BeDeviantI’ve been meditating on this passage from Scripture:
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you your heart’s desires.When we break this down, it could be read a few different ways:
- Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
- Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
The first one says that God will give you whatever your heart desires. The second one says that God will deposit into your heart what he desires you to desire. The second version is more faithful and less dangerous, and here’s why:
We have no idea what we should be desiring.
A Lesson From a 10-Month Old
I liken this to my relationship with my son, Finnegan. As he grows older, he will begin to show interest (read: desire) in certain things: toys, whining, popsicles, tantrums, snuggling, saying “no”, being read to, staying up past his bedtime, sharing, not taking naps, and giving kisses to his mommy. Some of these desires are very good. Some of them are very bad and detrimental to his health and well-being.But how does he know which is which? He doesn’t. At least not yet. He’s 10 weeks old. That’s why my wife and I are there for him. We are there to encourage the good desires (right now it’s smiling. Down the road it will be saying “please” and “thank you”) while discourage the bad ones (eating all of the candy he harvested from a night of trick-or-treating.) As he grows, hopefully he will begin to anticipate what his mom and I will say to the desires that he has. As he learns more and more about us as parents, and more about himself as a person, he will begin to reject the bad desires and engage the good ones.
I think all of us are a lot like Finnegan. We have all these desires and needs and really have no clue what to do with them. Instead of feeling guilty or wrong about having them (say, like wanting to make more money or wanting a chocolate milkshake), what if we asked God to give us back the ones he wants us to have? What if we asked him to give us back the desires of our hearts that he wants us to have?
My guess is that a lot of us would be shocked at the things God wants us to desire. As we take delight in him, we begin to see that he’s much nicer than we’ve been led to believe. We begin to see that our desires are really off in some ways, but are right and true in a majority of other ways. We begin to see that God actually likes it when we’re happy. Go figure.
With that, what do you desire?
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About the Author
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- From: bedeviant
- Name: Justin
- About Me: A religious deviant who enjoys coffee, reading theology, graphic design, and spending time with his wife while creatively exploring the riches of the Spirit of Christ.
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Comments (10)
As much as I don't like to admit it because it makes me sound like a whiner, I desire to get married someday. However, I've learned that you don't always receive things that are in line with God's desires if you want them with bad motives. Example: wanting to get married out of loneliness and a desire to have guilt-free sex rather than to be in a relationship that embodies God's love for the church.
PS. Your son is adorable!
Great post. Thought provoking. Finnegan is adorable.
Interesting how emphasis affects meaning. Thanks for the post! Haha, and like others have mentioned, your son is adorable.
From a Buddhist perspective:
Earthly desires equal enlightenment. That might seem like a very dangerous statement but it's actually most profound. In prayer the most important thing is to pray for what is in your heart, not what we think intellectually or theoretically we should be praying for. It is important to be honest in prayer with where one is at the moment. A common type of objection to this that comes up is, "Well then what if in my heart I want someone to die or I want to murder someone?" The answer is that what will play out as a result of such a prayer will be a replacement of that desire with an understanding that leads to a deeper faith and a compassion for the person we once hated. On the other hand if one tries to ignore that desire and instead pray for something we intellectualize as being loftier, the baser desire could possibly continue to rear its ugly head until its dealt with through faith. That is an extreme example but how many times do we continue to do things we believe to be bad. You know, you wake up with a hangover and swear you're not going to drink alcohol again but that evening a friend says 'hey let's go to that other club tonight' and off you go. No, it's most important to pray for whatever is in our hearts and have the faith that in being honest and not hiding ourselves by trying to be holier than we are there will come salvation. Another way of looking at it is a child's prayer for an ice cream cone might seem silly to a grownup but the sincerity of that child's prayer is unsurpassed. I'd happily join that child and prayer for his or her prayer to be answered. I might have to sneak out and buy the child the ice cream cone but then, God works in many ways.
Very valid reminder. it saves on feeling guilty about the desires that well up in me. If I gave them to God and asked Him to give back the ones I should have... I try and practice this, but what a great reminder.
thank you for posting this. i needed it.
i will definitely make that my prayer.
this was very good. i've never thought about desire in that way. of course i've heard that i need to want what God wants me to have, but never wanting what God wants me to desire. :) great lessons from parenthood.
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
I wonder if the real point is missed here. If you delight in the Lord, then your desires will be along the Lord's desires! Delighting in the Lord is like delighting in your spouse or truly loving someone. Love is for giving not getting. In love we want to do what is best for the object of our love.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, it keeps no record of wrongs, it does not rejoice in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
So when we get the desires of our heart, it will be along the lines of God's desires, because His desires will be our desires. This happens when we truly are in fellowship with God. If someone truly seeks God first then close fellowship will come. Again like someone you love, you want to be with them constantly. How many of us truly have the love for God to want Him to be with us and communicate both ways constantly? Many don't want to acknowledge that God is already there with us constantly even in our closet where the skeleton's are.
Remember what the desires of the greatest people in the Bible were? Moses, Abraham? How about Elisha when he was asked by Elijah what he wanted? And Solomon? Because Solomon asked for Wisdom, God gave him everything else too.
Who can truly say that they seek God first?