A thought by John Ortberg from his
book, The Me I Want to Be (p. 82).
Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to
buy the book.)
It seems that we may have some confusion on the matter of desires.
John says, “God made you with desires,
and he wants you to desire him most of all — but not only to desire him. Part
of trying softer is allowing what we naturally desire around us to lead us back
to God. There is a pattern to your desires — certain activities, sensations,
people, and thoughts that wake up the ‘got-to-have’ response in you. Those
desires are God’s gift to you. They are part of the you God wants you to be.”
John goes on, “When people enjoy what
God has created, his heart is pleased. However, many people think, If I want to
be spiritual, I have to avoid sin, and the best way to avoid sin would be to
just do away with desire altogether. If
I just didn’t want sex or money or food or success, I would be really spiritual
because then I wouldn’t sin. But then you wouldn’t be human, either. A slab of
cement doesn’t have to worry about weeds — but it will also never be a garden.
“Uncorrupted by sin, desire is
fabulous — fabulous because it is part of God’s design. The psalmist says to
God, ‘You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. The
LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made... He
fulfills the desires of those who fear him.’ (Psalm 145:16 NIV)”
John then says, “God is a
desire-creating, desire-satisfying God. He made birds with the impulse to fly —
they want to do it because God made them to do it. Dolphins swim because God
made them with an instinct to swim. God doesn’t plant wrong desires in his
creatures.”
He later says, “A beautiful prayer
from the Book of Common Prayer begins, ‘Most Holy God, the source of all
good desires.…’ God created desire, and it is God’s delight to fulfill desire.
I know that my desires are distorted by sin and need to be cleansed, purified,
and retrained. This is what Jesus refers to when he says, ‘Whoever wants to be
my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ (Mark
8:34) We must say no to any desires that would keep us from living in the flow
of the Spirit. We must always be ready to sacrifice a lesser desire for the
sake of living a greater life.
“On the other hand, nothing makes a
human being more vulnerable to temptation than a joyless life. God’s plan is
that every time we experience an authentic desire — a God-implanted desire in
us — we come to understand more deeply what a good God he is. We learn how God
has wired us and what he wants us to do. As a result, we find ourselves loving
this great God more and more. This is how we ‘taste and see’ that the Lord is
good, and our desire can be part of this river of life that flows in us with
power and energy.”
He is so good, isn’t He?
Comments
Post a Comment