Day 3367 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 37:4 NIV

As life unfolds we’ll all come to find that unbridled desires designed directionless dictate the lack of life we’re able to live within this time we’ve been so graciously given to live a life that has a meaning.

For the vast majority of our past has been lived as if the only meaning that matters in life, of life, for this life is whatever we might come to desire as if something so eternal as a life’s purpose can truly be found within a preference. And as pride comes alongside and says incessantly such, well, we eventually become nothing more than the mediocrity of our own insanity as seen and shown inside our desires driving our decisions to lighting fires which burn our lives to the ground as we slowly see that all this time we’ve built them of nothing but cardboard and confusion.

That is indeed the definition of our many desires, just cardboard and confusion, a chaotic cohesion of misunderstandings assuming that we know what we’re doing simply because of how things may look or sound or feel at any given moment.

And thus desires have become, again and again in fact, one of Scripture’s most obvious and obnoxious enemies. For instance, we see in Galatians 5:17 that “the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.” In fact, that verse goes on to say that “they are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” Indeed our desires and God’s design are locked in this almost endless enmity in which we slowly unravel into doing all He asks us not to.

Kind of like that very first decision demanded of desire back in the Garden.

See, Eve saw this fruit dangling in a sort of curiosity that the enemy eventually used to get the better of her otherwise lack of judgement. Which is in and of itself yet another reason in which we should do what so many say we can’t do, judge, but that’s another post for another time. For today, back to the fruit of that tree hanging there in a sort of forbidden rebellion that inspired and inspires still our reaching where we shouldn’t go.

Into knowledge of things we shouldn’t know as desired by these ideas designed by a wickedness wanting always what we don’t yet have, which in fact defines the dire difference between desire and delight. For desire demands the presence of want, of craving, of a yearning for something we come to convince ourselves our lives are not complete without our having. But delight, no, delight is designed upon gratitude for all we’ve already been given.

Yes, desire wants more but delight sees we’ve already plenty to be thankful for. And thus delight is the direction we’re called to take on this side of a cross taken up. Indeed, I do think it’s even fair to say that such is the design of Christ’s calling us to take up our crosses so as to count our losses of a life we’ve lived lost in love with this world of want always inspiring us to want more than we’ve been given, leaving then gratitude fallen into near fatality back behind this attitude which has replaced our appreciation.

And that’s a truly deadly place to be. It’s the place we’ve been talking about for a couple of days now. It’s this proverbial, almost veritable wasteland in which we’ve come to walk at the whim of these wants we’ve won at the expense of the opportunity to just be thankful for what we didn’t have to convince ourselves we needed. No, the reality is that God has always provided for our every need, a part of my nightly prayer in fact, just a time in which I always try to remember to be thankful for the many things I usually take for granted.

Which is again the very danger of desire. It inspires us to take for granted all we’re given as we sit in misery acting as if spoiled brats always begging for what we want with the same effort and eloquence that we could be offering our appreciation for His constant provision. Indeed, this idea is one I’m daily finding to be more and more egregious as it’s simply needless. We needn’t be so focused upon what we want that we become all but consumed by such willful wishes.

The very dilemma warned against every time the Bible speaks against all these idols we carve and crave.

For there is nothing inherently wrong with having something in this life, the problem comes in things of this life having us via our giving to them time and attention that could and thus should be given only unto the only One who’s actually given us life twice. Thrice in fact. For we were firstly born into this world of sin in which we’ve chosen foolishly to stay within. And then, Christ came and gave us His life, that’s two thus far. As for the third, well, that’s the one waiting our walking into that tomb where He shed His so that we might take up our share of that brand new beginning.

Because we all need just that very reset returning us to the reality of reason’s responsibility. We need to be reminded where our focus should be, where our fealty belongs, where our hope should be placed, not sought as if we’re not quite sure where to look having to now narrow it down to a singular decision. We’re not a people who appreciate singularities simply for the sake of the sacrifice of the excess and extravagant we still yearn for from within these desires that still deny delight.

You ever thought about that? How all of our desires never seem to finally or fully delight? How there’s never found within any of our wants and wishes a life well lived? How every time we get something we want, we find ourselves wanting something else?

How is that? I mean if our desires are so amazing that they’re truly worth all the devotion we give them, why don’t they ever seem to do what we assume them to? There is never any fulfillment within our getting whatever we’ve come to want, not lasting at least. For without fail, that shine fades, the thrill subsides, the glimmer and glean escape the scene leaving us to scream once more from down here inside a life lived leaning upon things to bring our meaning, to be our meaning.

And thus we’ve become the clay and the wants of this world the potter, allowing always a desire to demand a newfound discontentment here inside this life we’ve never really lived.

For how can we live a life when we refuse to appreciate, to even acknowledge the very Maker?

Now granted, from inside these blinded eyes believing only in everything we’re seeing as shown us by a world that all but owns us, we don’t likely see it that way. But friends, our always wanting something more than what God has already given, that’s a kind of faith forsaken that none of us should allow. None of us should be so quick as to agree to our remaining everything we say we don’t enjoy, don’t want to be. And yet we awake each day into a list of already planned desires we hope to be waiting for us in the day ahead.

And we’ve gone so very far into those incessant cravings that we even allow a portion, and perhaps a rather significant one, of even our prayers to become devoted to rattling off these lists of desired demands that we think we deserve in exchange for our temporary attention turned momentarily to God from the other gods we seek and serve. Yes, we come before God as if He’s just a vending machine meant only to fulfill our every request, but never enough to have any of His own of us.

So how is it then that we’ve come to convince ourselves that we’re serving Him when we live as if He’s there only to serve us? Has not this idea only severed us from understanding who He is and thus who we’re called now to be? Because our remaining the same as we’ve always been, gluttons greedy for almost vengeful gain, how can that remain when we claim to agree that He died to overcome such an underwhelming outlook as our wants taking away what should always have been His?

For we give our desires our devotion. We make our decisions based upon what’ll get us closer to gaining whatever it is we’re chasing. We spend our days drawing maps to these ideals we come to demand we deserve, and yet every second of that time wasted could have been given to seeing instead all He’s given.

But as these one-trick ponies we’ve become, we seem able to only see one side of this divide at a time. And so it’s down to either desires or delights, and as delights demand a semblance of humility for any to see, no, we see instead only the desires that keep us living as if enemies waging war against God for these pitiable wants we crave.

And they are all most pitiable indeed for they leave us nothing but more to start wanting. But if we just had the courage to deny our desires for just a moment, we just might see finally all He’s given us that we’ve always taken for granted. We just might be able to notice all the goodness He’s planted and watered around us. We might realize the revolting reality of our rebellion always leaving us running still from that Garden so filled with His presence and its provision.

Alas, there’s but one way to find that peace, that hope, that purpose: Take delight in the Lord.

This verse seems one of very scant few in which Scripture speaks of God giving us the desires of our hearts. Our heart’s desires are usually the enemy spoken against as they’ve long designed the sins in which we’ve forsaken the Son. And so this verse really stands out for a truly unique perspective, or so it would seem. For it seems indeed to say that God will give us what we want, but, but context proves the caveat.

Always seems to be a caveat.

For our heart’s desires to be given us from God, what must come first? Our taking delight in the Lord. For while that seems a matter easily enough both said and done, no, no it’s quite the contrary in fact. Because for us to take delight in God demands again that humility that we always seem to run from. It asks us to shift our focus back to the Father, forsaking for once the futility of our desires. But wait, I thought it said that He would give us our desires?

That’s the biggest difference in the world!

Because when our delight is in the Lord alone, our desires change. When we come to appreciate Christ in light of what He’s done that we do delight in His promise of new life, we come to crave only leaving this one behind. When we allow Him to teach our eyes to look upon the cross and see love rather than misery, we start to see the seeds of purpose and promise He planted. And when those seeds are watered by our humility enabling us to finally understand both what He did but also why He chose it, yes, chose it, then we’ll find ourselves beginning to make different choices.

And we’ll start wanting different things. And we’ll start doing different things. And we’ll start seeking, strangely perhaps, a different direction for our lives. And in that direction we just might stumble upon more ways to be humble, a sort of sanctification’s growth giving us eyes to see and ears that hear and hearts that ask that only He call them home. And when He does move in, everything else, everything left moves out.

And as we come to find a foreign joy in throwing the junk out of our hearts, out of our lives, we find an alien delight that doesn’t dissolve. We’ll feel a new joy that doesn’t fade. We’ll realize that He is indeed what we’ve been missing all this time otherwise given unto wanting all that isn’t Him and thus was never able to do or give what He already did. No, what He did was meant to flip tables, just takes us a while to realize that our hearts are the tables.

For when He knocks and we answer and agree to open and He does as He said He would and come in and eat with us, we want nothing else. Because it seems that when a soul finally tastes the Bread of life and realizes how good and wholesome and lasting and loving He really is, everything we knew about desire flips into our no longer looking for things to desire for us but rather seeking instead ways to delight ourselves in He who overcame the death of those desires designed without direction.

Friends, the sad truth is that here inside this freewill we’ve been given, we’ve gotten the chance to choose for ourselves whatever we want in life, of life, from life. And here inside this rotten world, we’ve agreed for a long time to want that rebellion ourselves for the sake of the selfishness it allows. But in Christ we have the chance to come to our senses and realize for once the emptiness found inside all that we’ve desired thus far. And while it will hurt to see all the mistakes we’ve made and the huge amount of time we’ve wasted making them, He promises it’s a pain that heals.

But only if we stop wanting all that wounds. We have to give up all this wanting and wishing, this wanton wasting of a life we’re losing. For that is the gravity of our existence, but sadly, one often used as nothing but an excuse to have our fun while we can. Friends, there’s more to life than fun and thrills and frills and all this excess we wade through. There is no purpose, no point in living this life for anything of this world. And His salvation helps us see just that!

And while our desires have long assumed we must look within this world for whatever we might enjoy, Christ tore that veil and in doing so opened unto all of us the endlessness of His promise of eternity waiting for those who dare look beyond the desires that keep us focused here.

May we then ask Him to teach us how to delight in Him so that we might find and feel the gratitude for all He’s given us. Because being thankful is a feeling that just blows wanting more out of the water! Don’t take my word though, no, this is something everyone needs to feel for themselves.

So take delight in the Lord and watch what that does to this life. Because only then will you realize that you’ve known nothing of what life was always meant to be, and that in Him you've now the chance to find it, to feel it, to live it forever with the One who knows that delight far outweighs desire.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold