Desires

I'm wrestling this morning with thoughts and ideas--I needed an outlet to write some of them down, so...here you go. This is sort of a public journal entry.

Much of our lives we spend wanting things that we don't have. My friend Beth once called it "Iwantitis." Such as, "I want a better car. I want a bigger house. I want to live somewhere else. I want to take these vacations. I want a PS3. I want an HDTV. I want friends. I want to be liked. I want people to call me up and invite me to ________." None of these desires are inherently sinful. They are basically part of a desire for a better life. We were born with desire. We were born with a hunger for relationship and community.

Psalm 37 says "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him..." Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you." We know these passages of Scripture, but we're so encircled with our consumeristic culture. How radically different our desires are when compared to what I was reading in devotions this morning from Acts 5:

"The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name."

or 4:32: "All the believers were in one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had."

I have a lot more prayer and settling to do around this idea. For starters,

God, redeem my desires. I feel an angst and unrest this morning about many things, but this is one of them. Maybe the unrest is from you and shouldn't go away. Maybe the tension of my desires at war should be there so that I will constantly need You. It's easy to quote these Scriptures, but hard to give up those desires that we see people all around us fulfilling. When our friends make purchases like those above, and we don't have the means, we're disappointed. We're sad because we want what we can't have. Yet You are ready and willing to give us Yourself. I am left praying Tozer's prayer 'I want to want thee.' I want those other things too. Rearrange my desires...."

(Wow. That was really hard to write that last three-word sentence.)

Let these words, the heart of David (Ps. 73:23-27), sink into my bones, and may You be my desire.

23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever."