Streams of Desire

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Over the course of the summer, I’ve read four books, plus a workbook on desire. (I’ll note those titles at the end of this post.) Each sifts through the often confusing and yet delightful aspects of desire. Culturally, I’ve been influenced to suppress desire. The idea being that desires are selfish, sinful, and should be excised from the soul. Dying to desire is synonymous with dying to self; or so the mantra goes.

Granted, sin-laden desires, as we read about in Romans 1, are the antithesis of what God celebrates. The ones we find in this passage in Romans destroy, abuse, and crush the souls of men and women. Here’s an excerpt from that passage:

 ²¹For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

What’s interesting about such destructive desires is the lack of gratitude toward God. There is no reference to God, no acknowledging Him. We, mankind, are the center of the universe, and what we want is validated by the very fact we want it to happen. We turn our God-given freedom of agency into a downward spiral of destruction. 

This is why you see sexual sin so prevalent in society; whether it be porn behind locked bedroom doors, one-night hook-ups on college campuses, or clandestine affairs between what seems to be otherwise good church people.  Those desires are not the desires God desires for us; nor should they be for ourselves; that is, if we were in our right minds.

In Galatians 5:16-26 we see these two streams of desire in opposition to each other. Desires of the flesh versus the desires of the Spirit. Here’s a list of the fleshly desires that God says are opposed to his heart and desires:

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ²¹ envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  

Truth is, I’ve had many of those desires. My soul longed for sexually immoral acts, indulging sensuality by arousing an image of myself that disregards God. Although I’ve never experienced an orgy, my underdeveloped adolescent mind fantasized about such much to my shame.

Be honest, that list of fleshy desires plagues all of us. God reminds us that pursuing them will ban us from eternal life. No Kingdom of God in our future. Ponder that for more than a nanosecond, and it makes one wonder what desires one should pursue.

Somewhere in life, those fleshly desires seem to carry us like surfing a Pacific wave. We’re all caught up in the hype until the wave crashes over us, burying us in an undertow that nearly drowns us.

If we’re fortunate to come up for air, we realize all that sensation is a bunch of fleeting pursuits, leaving us wasted and severely damaged.

Desires left to run wild will find you in a heap of woe.

Of course, God wants us to have some desires. Desires rich in experiences that draw us closer to ourselves, others, and God. 

Psalm 37:4 

Delight yourself in the Lord,

    and he will give you the desires of your heart. 

The secret here is that your heart is in a different place than the guy who is doing his thing, absent of God, in his life.

Psalm 37:3 reads,

Trust in the Lord, and do good;

    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. 

My heart is focused on God and the things he values.

In the New Testament, there are a couple of passages that reflect this same approach to desire.

John 15

⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 

Meaning, what you ask for aligns with what God desires for you. You can ask, and He will do it for you.

Forget the immature approach to abiding where you think if you perform as God wants, you will get a prize at the end of the day.  “Johnny, if you eat all your peas, you can have a cookie after supper!”  This is NOT what Jesus is talking about in this passage.

Paul writes about this in Philippians.

⁸ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹ What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. 

There’s a theme here.  Pursuing the heart of God changes your desires. Instead of self-seeking, fleshly desires, your heart now aligns increasingly with the things of God.  Things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely. 

Recently, a young man in his 20s was at a job site repairing a customer’s mechanical system. He’s a young man who had grown up in church all his life, made a faith commitment in late grade school to Christ, and yet, at the age of 12, was introduced to porn. His entire view of sexuality went awry. I don’t need to repeat this story that is all too familiar to too many of us. Many of us have our own black hole of sexual destruction we wish we could erase. 

Anyway, while on the job site, of course, the customer had porn posters right near where this young man had to work. He knew exactly what would happen if he dwelled on those images. If not there, later that night he’d relapse. But something inside him felt different this time. Those porn images actually repulsed him. Made him sick to his stomach. 

He was obviously glad to get the job done and out of that guy’s house, but later that evening he reflected on the fact his heart was changing. He found himself referencing various passages of Scripture like a hedge of protection.

His desires were changing from fleshly to godly. This goes back to something Paul wrote in Galatians.

¹⁶ But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  

Not wanting to keep this private, he told a trusted friend. “I walked away from that awful situation at work realizing I was less operating out of fear and more out of faith. My manhood was changing!”

The cool thing is that as our desires increasingly reflect the heart of God, His fruit of the Spirit becomes an increasingly visible part of our lives:

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴ And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 

So, what’s it going to be?  Streams of fleshly desire or ones that flow out of the heart of God?  Moment by moment, we have free agency to choose.  “Jesus, live your life through me.”

Warrior On!

The four books that are a part of my summer read include:

• Journey of Desire by John Eldredge
• Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition, and the Life of Faith by Jen Pollock Michel
• Desire by Jay Stringer
• Desire Workbook by Jay Stringer