God issues a call for all of us to leave behind our natural, instinctive desires in order to be drawn into something much deeper, higher. Indeed, we were created by God with a strong sense of desire…yearning. But this sense was built with purpose, and this direction of this purpose is hijacked continuously within us and veered off-course into all kinds of other alternatives that take us nowhere except farther away from where we really need to go. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Contrary to what popular culture seems to proclaim all around us, we humans are not the center of the universe. There is a God, and it’s not you or me. He created and sustains this world with deep, specific purpose, and He created us with purpose that goes way beyond our limited perspective. We get so enamored and obsessed with the things we desire – whether it’s things money can buy, pleasures we can experience, or even relationships we can savor – that we naturally, instinctively focus beyond the purpose of the desire. Desire was built into us in order to connect us with God! Our relationship with Him, guiding and providing each day, is the purpose of desire itself. Desire is a tool…but we humans have a long, long history of worshiping the wrong thing, don’t we? This misguided, conflicted, calloused tendency is a snare that threatens to derail us from the path of God every single day. So staying on the course toward Him is a constant decision that often goes against our grain. It’s important that we understand and accept that, remembering that these two paths – focused on God or releasing focus to embrace desire – represent two masters. We must choose wisely…every moment of every day.
Some days we need more heavy reminders of why & how to walk in the ways of Jesus. Today is one of those days for me. These words from Ephesians 4 kicked my but this morning, in a very good way. I hope they help you too:
“17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. 20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
