using your desires constructively

Where do our desires come from? We all have similar desires. We ¹all desire love, happiness, tranquility, meaning, purpose, pleasure and so on. What do we do with these desires? Are they imaginary? Are they legitimate? Do we ignore them and pretend they don't exist? 

Having desire also raises a different question. If we are simply the result of time plus chance, with no source of origin, why do we desire these things to begin with? To desire meaning suggest we exist for a purpose, not merely by chance. 

In reality every desire is ultimately a desire for God. They are there because He is the source of love, joy, peace, happiness, delight, beauty and infinite worth - i.e. all the things we desire - and because we were created for Him - i.e. designed to find satisfaction of all of these things ²in Him. 

We have, however, sought to fulfill these desires elsewhere instead, where they can never be truly and fully satisfied. If we try to meet them in and through others and things other than God, we will never find ³lasting satisfaction. The finite (created things) can never satisfy a void meant to be filled by the infinite God.

Whenever we experience a desire for something other than God we should let it remind us that ultimately our desires can only be satisfied in and through him. Instead of avoiding or suppressing our desires or acting on them by seeking some short-term satisfaction, we should let them drive us into a stronger pursuit of God where our desires were intended to be met i.e. We should enter into those desires as fully as possible -- not numb them with some temporary pleasure of creation. We should let them stir our hearts to press harder into God for satisfaction. It is only in him they were designed to be fulfilled and can be satisfied. 

For a further discussion on whether desires are good or bad click here 

For a further discussion on where desires come from click here 

For a further discussion on why God is desirable click here 

______________________________________________Footnotes:

¹since these qualities are common to us all, this says something very significant about humanity and how we relate to each other. This also says something significant about the common origin and purpose for our existence. We are all created equally in our desire to find meaning and significance because we are all in His image and created to know God, who is the ultimate source of all things.

²Psalm 16:11 English Standard Version (ESV)

11 You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

 Psalm 63 

1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
    my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
    beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
    my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live;
    in your name I will lift up my hands.

5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
    and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
6 when I remember you upon my bed,
    and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help, 
    and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

³And the joy we find in Him now is only a taste of the feast that is to come.  Overflowing, uninterrupted fullness does not occur until we see Him face to face. And once we do we will be so complete we will like Christ Himself.

Where does desire come from?

Where does desire come from?

(Are our desires good or bad?)

Why do we desire at all? It is because we are lacking something that is missing. We want because we do not have. 

What is it that we want/desire? We desire significance, meaning, importance, and pleasure - in a word, love. 

What gives us pleasure? Anything that makes us feel important, significant, desired, loved i.e. good about ourselves. We all long for this.

Why do we need to feel important, significant, and valuable? Because God designed us this way. In a word, He designed us for love; to be loved because He is love.

Why did He design us that way? 

To be in a relationship with Him. In order for us to be in a relationship with Him, we had to be like Him. We have to be able to receive and reflect back love to the Source i.e. God and in turn out of others. 

And what is He like? 

He is important, significant, and valuable, i.e. glorious. In order for us to appreciate His importance, significance, and value, we had to be designed to appreciate it i.e. to have the capacity to enjoy (find joy in) Him. 

Since God is this way and designed us for a relationship of love with Him, we can (and must be able to) appreciate and enjoy His importance, significance, and value. In order for us to appreciate this, we must derive a sense of importance, significance, and value from enjoying these qualities in Him. 

The very definition of relationship is two persons giving and receiving something from each other; interacting with each other. In order to give God glory i.e. recognize His importance, significance, and value and to receive and enjoy Him, we had to have the capacity to enjoy Him - His glory. In order to do so He designed us in such a way that we could be in a relationship with Him, hence our need for importance, significance, and value. 

To restate this simply, we cannot enjoy and appreciate God's great worth if we do not have the ability to appreciate it, feel it, and have the desire for or want it. The greater our capacity to appreciate and value (glorify) God, the greater our ability to appreciate and value Him.

Desiring to be safe and secure, loved, valued, happy, etc are all good desires. All desires put in us by God - so we might partake of him - and a significant part of us being created in His image. This is so we can have a relationship with Him. The issue is not our desires but who do we look too, to fulfill them i.e. where are our desires ultimately best met... who or where do they "land?" 

Our desires are:

·        A part of our being in God’s image

     But also the result of…

·        Being alienated or separated from God

So there is a good element to our desires - being in God’s image so we can enjoy, worship, and glorify God. But there is a broken element as well. We are not fully connected to (but are separated from) a loving relationship with God due to our distrust of Him. We therefore now lack what we were designed to experience in Him…love, joy, peace, pleasure, value, importance, meaning and so on. Because we are not fully connected to (but separated from) Him - the Source of all true meaning and fulfillment, due to our distrust and rejection of our Father/Creator - we go about seeking to fill that lack with anything and everything but that which can truly and best fill it, God Himself. 

We need all the things God created but those things are provided to show us God and His love, not become the things we worship. They are given because we were designed to be in a relationship with the Creator of those things. 

His creation and all that comes to us by and through it are gifts from God and evidence of His love, intended to point us to Him as the source of life, love and all things. To truly appreciate them as intended they are to be received as gifts and expressions of His love for us. They are the means by which God brings life, not life itself. To say it another way, our true God is the source of life and all things, not the things themselves. To look to these things exclusively as a means to life is to make them our god.

Because we have spent all our lives attempting to satisfy our desires with anything but that which can truly satisfy them, our desires are stymied, suppressed. C. S. Lewis said it this way,

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

By weak desires, Lewis means we have the capacity for far greater desires (and joys) but there is nothing in this life to satisfy our strongest and deepest longings, so we just keep them in check with temporary pleasures. We anesthetize our deepest longings. To allow our deepest desires to fully surface would be too painful. We fear allowing ourselves to want something that might not be available, which we can't control or that could be lost or taken away.

This is only because we refuse trusting God to give us what we need and long for most, not realizing it is God himself we most need. 

However, as we grow to trust God and let go of those things we use to anesthetize our deepest longings, our capacity to receive His love expands. As that capacity increases, our longings also increase. We feel and enjoy more because we trust more and along with that trust our capacity to feel and enjoy more has grown. We are being restored to our original state of finding and enjoying God as the only and true satisfier of our hearts. 

For a discussion on how God proved his love for us & is worthy of our trust click here.

For a discussion on the internal struggle we all experience click here. 

For a discussion on how we were created for glory click here. 

 

 

Our desires… Good or bad?

Our desires are:

·        A part of our being in God’s image

But also misdirected as a result of…

·        Being separated from God

-->So there is a good element to our desires. 

By virtue of being in God’s image we can enjoy, worship and glorify God. 

-->But there is a bad element as well. 

We are separated from God and therefore now lacking what we were designed to experience in Him…perfect love, joy, peace, pleasure, value, importance, meaning and so on. Because we are separated from the source of our true fulfillment due to distrust and rejection of our Father/Creator, we go about seeking to fill that lack with anything and everything (i.e. in or by creation) but that which can truly and only fill it, God Himself (the Creator).

Because we have spent all our lives attempting to satisfy our desires with anything but that which can truly satisfy, our desires are stymied, suppressed. As C.S. Lewis stated...

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I would add though we may be pleased on some level we are never truly satisfied. 

By "weak desires," I believe Lewis means we have the capacity for much greater desires. However because there is nothing in this life to satisfy our truest, strongest and deepest desires, we keep them in check with temporary things. We anesthetize our deepest and greatest longings. 

To allow our true longings to fully surface would be too painful because nothing exists in this life that can satisfy them. It might even cause us to look beyond the temporary things we use to the Creator of those things instead. But due to our rebellion we avoid looking to our Creator with everything that is in us. We refuse trusting God (in our rebellious state controlling feels safer than trusting) to give us what we need and long for which He alone can provide.

However as we grow to trust God and let go of those things we use to anesthetize our longings, our capacity to receive His love increases. As that capacity increases our longings also increase. We feel more because our capacity to feel more has expanded. We are being restored to our original state of finding and enjoying God as the only and true satisfier of our hearts.

Free will or free choice?

While our choices are ¹free and 100% ours (i.e. we freely choose to do what we want), our ³wills are not. Our wills are tied to our desires. 

To say it another way, our "chooser" is not broken but our "wanter" is.

²And our wants (desires) dictate what we ¹choose to pursue. 

If we desire (want) the wrong things we we choose to pursue the wrong things. 

And our desires are tied to what we value. The more we value something, the more we desire it and the harder we pursue it. 

And we value only what we ⁴see as valuable. 

If ⁴we are blind to seeing God's true value, worth, beauty, wisdom, glory, majesty, and power as our infinite loving Creator - the Source of life, love, and all things - we will never pursue Him as the infinitely valuable and significant being that He is. We will desire and pursue created things and beings instead. 

Why? ⁵We are like God and created to enjoy Him who is most valuable, beautiful, intelligent, glorious, majestic, and loving. Absent a personal relationship with Him - who is the Source of life, love, and all things - we go after His creation (the next best thing) to fill the void of His absence. Particularly other image bearers (you and I) who by design are most like God and have the greatest capacity to love and reflect him most when in union with Him through Christ.

Scripture tells us God is all valuable (glorious) but what about our value and our feeling significant, important? Does it matter? If so, why?

Because God is significant, important, and valuable, we are and must be like Him in order to be able to appreciate and enjoy these qualities in Him. 

We are told in Jas 4: 

[5] "...Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”"?  

What kind of spirit has God put within us? A spirit that longs (is passionate) for infinite love, worth, and glory. Love that can only be satisfied fully by the Source of love - our Creator; not by creation.  

He will not share in (is jealous over) our pursuit or loyalty to any other "lover" because He knows our capacity to value and enjoy Him is unparalleled to all the rest of creation and there is no other true lover who can fill this need and desire in us for love that He designed to be filled only by Him. This is "the spirit He has made to dwell in us."

Not because He needs our love but because we need His. Our being in His image wasn't happenstance. He designed us this way. He is the Creator, we are created...but unlike the rest of creation we are created in His image. Therefore He loves us and desires we experience Him to the maximum of His true worth and our capacity as bearers of His image. 

Everything in creation we seek for life outside of God is temporary. Therefore it comes up short of filling our need for and sense of value-worth (glory). GOD alone is the Source of infinite love. To experience His love to the maximum of our capacity, we must give Him all our loyalty and faithfulness (i.e. have no other "gods" before Him). Otherwise we will never experience His love as it truly is and as we were designed to, but instead we will pursue created things for love outside of and instead of Him.  

Where does this need/desire for significance (glory) come from? Click here. 

For a discussion on the necessity of choice click here.

For a further discussion on how our "wanter" is broken and not our "chooser" click here. 

For a discussion on ability vs responsibility click here

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¹And our choices are ours alone. No one else's, including God. Therefore we are fully accountable for what we value and chose to pursue. 

²Note the progression of the "ands" above. Each deals with a significant shift, but also a vital connection to the previous and following "and" statement. To get to the 2nd "and" you must acknowledge the 1st. And to get to the 3rd we must see the 2nd. 

*our wants-desires dictate what we ¹choose to pursue. 

*our desires-wants are tied to what we value

*we value only what we ⁴see as valuable. 

³Is God free to do whatever he wants? 100%!  But because God is holy He only wants (desires-wills) what is good and best and freely choses righteousness i.e. His character or nature dictates His will/desires, as does ours.

 For a fuller discussion click here.

⁴To see truly, the Spirit of God must reside in us. And that only occurs after we've been "born again" i.e. after we are spiritually regenerated. 

"Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (1st) he cannot see the kingdom of God.” " John 3:30

Before we are born again we are blind to spiritual things - i.e. things pertaining to God's kingdom. The Bible says we are dead to God. Last I checked dead people don't see very well 😉! 

⁵Why does our feeling and desire for significance, importance, and value matter? 

We are like God who is significant, important, or valuable. We must be like Him so we can appreciate and enjoy these qualities in Him. That which is most like God is most able to appreciate and enjoy Him as He is.

God's  significance, importance, and value (glory) are the foundation for ours. Our recognizing this about God is essential to experiencing our own value. The more we see his glory the more we experience our glory in and through Him. 

Friends

John 15:9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants,[a] for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants,[a] for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 

"As the Father has loved me, - Jesus - so have I loved you. Abide in my love." - Jesus

What is the nature of the Father's love for His Son? Is it not an infinite, unrelenting, boundless, and perfect love? Is it not eternal bliss, overflowing with joy? It is indeed! 

This is exactly the same love - indicated by "as...so" in the above verse - that the Son has for us.  Christ is telling - and promising - this same love (the Father's love for the Son) is his love for us. Do you believe!? Selah... ponder this for a moment. Read it over and over until it stirs and delights your heart... "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word" - i.e. promise - of God-Christ. Rom 10:17

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

In carrying out the will of another, we are aligning ourselves, our desires, and conduct with their wishes and desires. It is how we show our love, respect for, and delight in them. And when we do we more fully partake of - abide in - the love they have for us. This is what relationships are all about - the giving and receiving of love.

Our keeping the commandments of God the Son and Christ keeping the commandments of God the Father is how we both participate in the joy the Father has in the Son by the Spirit. This is a mutually shared interest we have with Christ - a key reason we are friends. We both desire to honor the Father we love, with our words and actions.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

And what is the joy of the Son? It is the mutual joy of friendship - union - with the Father. The Son delights in the Father and the Father delights in the Son. They share a mutual delight in each other (a mutually shared interest is the essence of friendship). And it is this very same joy that we are invited to enter into, partake of, and share. This common interest that we share with Christ makes us friends.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

As the Father has loved the Son and the Son has loved us so we are to love each other. The early verses spell out that love. This verse talks about how this love flows out from us to others. 

And how has the Father loved the Son and the Son loved us? Sacrificially. They both ¹gave up something they loved and valued greatly - a mutual, perfect, unobstructed union with each other - for the benefit of another i.e. us. They valued another's benefit and interests - ours - more than their own.  

The Father sent the Son - of his eternal union, infinite love, and unfettered communion - away from himself and down to earth to be with us. The Son left the Father of infinite love, became a man, took his body and the life it possessed, and laid it down for us so we might have the same love relationship with the Father of infinite love and delight. Christ wanted to share with us what he valued and delighted in most - the Father - and gave up something he valued, to do so i.e. his own life and unobscured fellowship with His Father, as the next verse confirms.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

The central component of friendship is mutually shared interests. Friends share the same values, interests, and desires. What is that mutual interest that we and Christ share? A desire to bring honor and pleasure to the Father by following His will, desire, and commandments.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

The father is not only the ²Sovereign head - the master/Lord - over all things, he is also our friend. The secret things that only the Son knows and hears from the Father are shared with us.

When someone lets you in on who they are, their most intimate personal joys, desires, and secrets they are opening up and sharing their heart with you. They are even making themselves vulnerable. This is what friends do and only what friends do. We do not share our secret dreams, joys, and desires with strangers. Nor does God.

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¹Ironically in so doing they experienced their own value and joy for each other more.

²To be friends with someone doesn't mean you are equals in skill or ability but in interests, values, and desires. You both have an interest in the same things. For us and Christ, that mutually shared value is love for the Father and a desire to honor Him. And how do we honor him?  How do we honor anyone we love? By doing what they ask us to do. We share this in common with Christ which makes us friends.

When God or Christ reveals something secret about themselves to us this is a gesture of friendship.

The key to friendship is mutual or common interests. In this sense the Father, Son and Spirit are friends and have been from all eternity past. We also are friends with God if we desire what he desires i.e. his honor and glory.  And when we do he reveals himself to us and shares himself with us.

Loneliness is not a characteristic of imperfection but of perfection. The Father and Son are not alone - and never were at any time - but they are friends and we are like him/them. We are not designed to be alone but to be in relationship just as the Father and Son are in a relationship of mutually shared interests. To participate in their friendship is to be like them; to be friends.

C.S. LEWIS TALKS TO A DOG ABOUT LUST

C.S. LEWIS TALKS TO A DOG ABOUT LUST

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The following is a reproduction of the original article found here. 

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People sometimes think of Christian morality as a straitjacket—as if God has given us arbitrary commands that we must keep in order to prove our devotion to him. Following God’s instructions (especially in matters related to sexuality) requires us to sacrifice what we truly want, or to squelch our desires, in order to show God how much we love him. We are to give up what we want and obey him instead.

Reading through the collected letters of C. S. Lewis this year, I came across this gem in a letter from Lewis to his lifelong friend, Arthur Greeves, on September 12, 1933. Lewis was no stranger to lust and sexual temptation, and neither was Greeves, who experienced same-sex attraction.

But Lewis believed that the “Christian morality is arbitrary” perspective doesn’t go deep enough. It doesn’t consider what we really want. Neither does it deal with what God really wants. He uses his dog as an example:

“Supposing you are taking a dog on a lead through a turnstile or past a post. You know what happens (apart from his usual ceremonies in passing a post!). He tries to go to the wrong side and gets his head looped round the post. You see that he can’t do it, and therefore pull him back. You pull him back because you want to enable him to go forward. He wants exactly the same thing—namely to go forward: for that very reason he resists your pull back, or, if he is an obedient dog, yields to it reluctantly as a matter of duty which seems to him to be quite in opposition to his own will: though in fact it is only by yielding to you that he will ever succeed in getting where he wants.”

I wish I’d come across this illustration sooner, because I would have included it in This Is Our Time as an example of one of my book’s main points—that underneath the myths we believe and the actions we perform are both longings and lies.

The dog believes the lie that the only way forward, the only way to get what it wants, is to push ahead. Lewis, the dog-owner, affirms the longing of the dog to go forward, but he must pull the dog back in order for it to actually make any progress.

Lewis Talks to His Dog

Next, Lewis explains what he would say to his dog, if suddenly it became a theologian and was frustrated by the owner’s thwarting of its will:

‘My dear dog, if by your will you mean what you really want to do, viz. to get forward along the road, I not only understand this desire but share it. Forward is exactly where I want you to go.

‘If by your will, on the other hand, you mean your will to pull against the collar and try to force yourself forward in a direction which is no use—why I understand it of course: but just because I understand it (and the whole situation, which you don’t understand) I cannot possibly share it. In fact the more I sympathize with your real wish—that is, the wish to get on—the less can I sympathize (in the sense of ‘share’ or ‘agree with’) your resistance to the collar: for I see that this is actually rendering the attainment of your real wish impossible.’

God Shares Our Ultimate Desire

Lewis applies this parable to our own situation. As human beings, we long for happiness, yet believe the lies that lead to evil actions:

God not only understands but shares the desire which is at the root of all my evil—the desire for complete and ecstatic happiness. He made me for no other purpose than to enjoy it. But He knows, and I do not, how it can be really and permanently attained. He knows that most of my personal attempts to reach it are actually putting it further and further out of my reach. With these therefore He cannot sympathize or ‘agree’: His sympathy with my real will makes that impossible. (He may pity my misdirected struggles, but that is another matter.)

So, over against the person who says, “I must squelch my desires, out of duty to God” Lewis says, No, God actually shares your ultimate desire. He is redirecting your path so you can actually find that joy you long for.

And over against the person who says, “God affirms me as I am and sympathizes with all my desires,” Lewis would say, No. Because God affirms your ultimate desire, he must categorically reject your sinful actions and desires, for they will forever keep you from what you really want.

The Longing for Joy and the Lie of Sin

What’s the takeaway? First, Lewis says we can look back at our history and see there is a God-given longing behind many of our sinful actions.

“I may always feel looking back on any past sin that in the very heart of my evil passion there was something that God approves and wants me to feel not less but more. Take a sin of Lust. The overwhelming thirst for rapture was good and even divine: it has not got to be unsaid (so to speak) and recanted.”

But now Lewis exposes the lie: the idea that giving into your sinful, illicit lust will fulfill that longing:

“But [the thirst] will never be quenched as I tried to quench it. If I refrain—if I submit to the collar and come round the right side of the lamp-post—God will be guiding me quickly as He can to where I shall get what I really wanted all the time.”

The Gracious, Ruthless God

Second, Lewis says this parable applies to future temptation, and helps us understand why we should expect God to be ruthless in condemning our sin:

“When we are thinking of a sin in the future, i.e. when we are tempted, we must remember that just because God wants for us what we really want and knows the only way to get it, therefore He must, in a sense, be quite ruthless towards sin.

“He is not like a human authority who can be begged off or caught in an indulgent mood. The more He loves you the more determined He must be to pull you back from your way which leads nowhere into His way which leads you where you want to God. Hence MacDonald’s words ‘The all-punishing, all-pardoning Father’.”

It is impossible to appeal to God’s “love” in order to affirm you in your lusts. God cannot and will not affirm your sinful desires and actions because to do so would make it impossible for you to know true joy.

So what should you do when you fall into sin? Ask for forgiveness and redirection.

“You may go the wrong way again, and again He may forgive you: as the dog’s master may extricate the dog after he has tied the whole lead round the lamp-post. But there is no hope in the end of getting where you want to go except by going God’s way.”

Longings and Lies in Our Lust

This parable about the dog helps us see both the longings and the lies in the world’s understanding of sexuality, and it smashes the idea that God wants to kill our joy or obliterate all our desires. Far from it! Instead, Lewis believes that God pulls back the collar precisely because He wants us to find the delight we crave, in Him:

“I think one may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion—which raises its head in every temptation—that there is something else than God, some other country into which He forbids us to trespass—some kind of delight which He ‘doesn’t appreciate’ or just chooses to forbid, but which would be real delight if only we were allowed to get it. The thing just isn’t there. Whatever we desire is either what God is trying to give us as quickly as He can, or else a false picture of what He is trying to give us—a false picture which would not attract us for a moment if we saw the real thing.

“God knows what we want, even in our vilest acts. He is longing to give it to us. He is not looking on from the outside at some new ‘taste’ or ‘separate desire of our own.’ Only because he has laid up real goods for us to desire are we able to go wrong by snatching at them in greedy, misdirected ways. . . . 

“Thus you may well feel that God understands our temptations—understands them a great deal more than we do. But don’t forget MacDonald again—’Only God understands evil and hates it.’ Only the dog’s master knows how useless it is to try to get on with the lead knotted around the lamppost. This is why we must be prepared to find God implacably and immovably forbidding what may seem to us very small and trivial things.”

God understands our temptations. He knows our hearts better than we do. He sympathizes with our ignorant attempts to find joy apart from him. But in his great love, he refuses to affirm us in our misdirected ways. To do so would be to abandon us to the leash and lamppost, where we would strangle ourselves.

Eager anticipation (hope) is good

There is nothing wrong with eagerly anticipating and hoping for a successful outcome on the ¹good (Godly) things we seek and desire. 

Hope is actually a significant element of the gospel and a key part of what moves us to pray.

But we must also remember that God knows what is best. He alone sees the end from the beginning.  Whenever we pray we must always remember it is "...not my will but yours be done" that we should be seeking. We must recognize His will ultimately is always best no matter how it may appear the opposite. We may never see what that best is until we are in eternity with Christ. But we can know that conforming us to the image of Christ is always God's ultimate goal. Why? So we might experience - both now but especially in eternity - the Father's infinite love for us in the same way Christ experiences it.

He also knows how our hearts are inclined towards obtaining the blessings of life and not the Blesser. He knows whether giving us the desires of our heart will draw us away from Him or closer to Him... we don't, we only think we know. 

He knows our heart far better than we do. We must trust He is always working for both our greatest good and His highest glory in light of His infinite wisdom and a full understanding of our heart. We must always remember He is our greatest good and greatest joy, not a particular outcome of our chosing.

We get off the path when our hopes deteriorate into ²demands. God owes us nothing - though He loves to give us all things - and we can demand nothing from Him. Who has ever given to God, that God must repay them? Everything we are and have is a gift - i.e. by grace alone.

When we desire God above everything else, our desires align with His and his desires become ours. When they do, he gives us what we desire. But He alone knows when our hearts are truly and fully submitted to him. 

The bottom line? God desires we trust him even as Christ trusted Him regardless of what He does or does not give.

For a further discussion on hope click here.

For a further discussion on prayer click here.

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¹Such as a good and godly marriage or godly children; our business to be productive; to have a significant impact for God through our work, in our Christian community or other social interactions. These are all good and godly hopes but even these can get out of balance and "go south" i.e.  They can shift from being a secondary desire to our primary one.

Such as when Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal and won. God moved in a powerful way through Elijah and "showed up" the prophets of Baal. No doubt Elijah hoped this would result in Israel and it's King and Queen turning back to God (a very good hope). But they did not turn back. Because things did not go as Elijah hoped he went into hiding and a deep depression. The queen (Jezebel) had not only refused to turn to God but swore to take his life for defeating Baal her god.

²This is also where Job went off the rails. Overtime his desire for something good and valid (an explanation from God for his suffering) deteriorated into a demand. He eventually repented and recognized all he had was from God to begin with and that God owed him nothing, not even an explanation.

Willpower or affections?

Our desires trump our will (though they are not entirely separate from it)

To will something (simply choose to act) contrary to our affections does not work long term. Willpower alone does not sustain our actions or change our behavior.

This is a willing not because we truly want to do something but because we think we must. This is choosing because we believe we have to choose in order to be approved/accepted/lovable. This is seeking to earn love. 

Since we can never do enough to gain the love we were designed for this leads to burn out. We may press forward with considerable effort for an extended time only to find out no amount of effort gives us what we truly long for nor does it fulfill our deepest desires. 

A Shift

When we recognize we are already approved/accepted/loved in Christ the need to earn the acceptance of others (including God) is no longer necessary; everything within us shifts. This is not something we do, it's something we believe, recognize, acknowledge. 

What needs to change is not our wills but our affections. 

But our affections are not something we can simply will ourselves to have and into existence. They just are. Our affections automatically change once our beliefs about God and ourselves change. 

So where do affections come from? 

They are the result of what we believe is most attractive/beautiful/ significant. 

When we see something beautiful we are naturally drawn to it. This is not something we consciously choose or think about. We simply long for what we believe is most desirable. This is a given. 

We do not choose our desires, we choose what we believe will best meet them.

And what we long for, we pursue/go after. So our affections are central to long-term change but are also directly tied to what we believe is desirable or worthy of our affections. 

Why is something desirable? 

We believe it will give us what we want and/or need.

Why is belief necessary? 

Because we are limited in what we see, know and are able to do. We must trust in order to acquire what we need.

Our belief is based upon our seeing. 

If what is objectively most desirable is hidden from our view we will not desire or pursue it i.e. We will not subjectively experience the desire for it or have the will to go after it. 

If we are lost and dying of thirst and stumble across a muddy, leaf filled puddle, we will gladly drink from it. But if we looked up and saw 50 feet further there was a crystal clear spring fed stream we would find strength (i.e. the willpower) to continue past the puddle to the stream.

And what is it that we want? 

To be valued. To be treated as significant, worthwhile; in a word, loved. Whatever we believe will best provide this is what is most desirable to us.

And why is it we want this?

We are like God who is most valuable. In order to appreciate his value we had be like him i.e. have the ability to appreciate value and experience our own in so doing.  

The basis for change listed in order of priority/importance

* God ...the source of all love and beauty is most lovely, beautiful and desirable above all things

* Our seeing him as he is i.e. lovely, beautiful and desirable (by faith – a work of the Spirit)

* Increasing affections for God as we see him more clearly 

* Pursuit of God (faithfulness/obedience to him) as we recognize he is desirable above everything else

For a further discussion on desires and where they come from click here.