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Desire More

Understanding Desire and Ability


How much do we really want God? When I look around at the distractions that plague my own life, the filth and decay that society is wallowing in, and the church programs filled with glitter and no substance, I'm forced to come to the conclusion that we want Him very little. We know we need to invite God into our hearts, but it's almost like we've done it grudgingly as a matter of necessity. "Ok, this is where you'll be staying God, but don't touch anything, and whatever you do don't go in that room over there. That's my private spot where my real treasure is kept."

There's a huge different between want and need that most of us don't clearly see when it comes to our relationship with Yahweh. There's a song with the chorus, "You're all I want / You're all I've ever needed / You're all I want / Help me know you are near." It struck me the other day that, althought most of us would feel that a need outweighs a want, (I want the newest model. I need oxygen.) want is repeated while need is not. I have no idea if the writer of the song intended to make this statement, but what struck me was the importance of want over need.

Need is objective. I can recognize that I need something whether I'm in compliance with that thing or not. I can realize that I need food to live, all the while I'm on a hunger strike. I need to eat, but I don't want to eat. So although I have a recognition of need, it does me no good.

Want is subjective. It requires an analysis of my opinions and desires. If I am truly involved in a starvation diet, I can make the statement that I need food to live, but I cannot say that I want it. The truth is that if I don't desire food and then act upon that lack of a desire and eat nothing, then I'm in the same boat as a lost fool who claims he needs no food to survive. We will both waste away, him a victim of his idiocy or ignorance, and me a victim of my stubborn will.

I'm not saying that recognizing your need for Christ is unimportant, but it's only one step in the process. Jesus wants to live in our hearts, our emotional centers, for a reason. He wants an intimate, passionate relationship, not a union of necessity as if we're enemies that have briefly teamed up to oppose a common foe. Have you ever been in the situation that I've been in many times where you know that you should want God, but when it comes right down to it, you have to honestly admit that you don't. How many of you, like me, have ever looked at God logically and known that what He has for you is so much better than what you're striving for yourself, known that it would be so much better if you would accept it, and known that as wonderful as it would be to fully embrace God's plan for your life, you simply didn't want it. How many of you, like me, have ever looked at God and said, "I want to want You, but right now I have to admit that I just don't want you."

Admitting to God that you don't want Him, but you want to want Him, is a good step in moving your treasure. The bible says that where your treasure is, there also is your heart, or in other words your desires and passions. Notice that it does not say that where your heart is, that's where your treasure is. You don't have a passionate desire for something and so place your treasure in it. Your passionate desire is for your treasure. The location is irrelevant in and of itself. The importance of the place that draws your desire is the fact that your treasure is located there. I don't find a new place to love and then move my treasure there, I move my treasure and so come to love a new place.

The thing about misplaced treasure is that it can be anything other than an intimate relationship with God. It can even be doing good works. Jesus told us to seek the kingdon of Heaven first and His righteousness. He didn't tell us to seek His will for our careers first or to seek the homeless or the poor first, or to seek missions in other countries first. In Revelation, Jesus tells the church at Ephesus that they're doing good works and treats it as the good thing it is. He is giving them recognition for their patience and their labors and He never tells them to quit. But He has a problem with them in that the patience and the labor have become their treasure. They lost their first love, their passionate desire: Him. They began by falling in love with Him and good works did arise out of that. Their works were not what was wrong. Their replacement of Him as to where their treasure was kept, that's what was wrong. Jesus wanted His place back as first and foremost of their hearts' desires.

Are good works important? Of course, but they should spawn from a loving heart's desire to serve the God who has shown His infinite love and grace to a sinful race. Is recognizing our need for God important. Is revealing that need to a lost people important? Of course, but don't ever stop with just the need. Recognizing need should only be the first step that draws you closer to a passionate relationship with Him.

Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want. The twenty third Psalm has been retranslated as "I shall not lack" by many people around me lately. I'm not disputing the validity of this understanding of the twenty third psalm, but I hope that those who are using it aren't limiting the psalm by removing the word "want". Yahweh is my shepherd. I don't need anything else. With Him, I won't lack for anything. He's got it all and it's been placed at my disposal. I don't have to fall to the "poverty is holy" faulty mentality that pervades many religious mindsets. But so much more than that is the understanding that if Yahweh truly is my shepherd, I won't want anything else. The more I fall deeply in love with Him, the less I want the shabby filth of this world. I don't want to go back to my selfish ways. I don't want the hollow distractions and the perverse counterfeits anymore if I want Him with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength.

Allow me this translation. Yahweh is my shepherd, therefore every single need has been met, I have no lack whatsoever, and the desires of the man I used to be I now see as the filthy, disgusting attempts to replace Yahweh as my treasure that they really are, and I want them no more.

As the song says, "And the things of Earth will grow strangely dim / In the light of His glory and grace."

I am the pen.

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