The Circle of Delight and Desire

As fitting a title that might be for a romance writer like myself, this circle probably isn’t what you think at first glance. My topic today isn’t exactly about human delight and desire. Well, it is and it isn’t. (Don’t you hate it when people say that?)

This weekend, my church hosted a pastor from another local church. His name is Jarrett Stevens, from the Soul City Church in the West Loop of Chicago. I was so impressed I thought I’d share some of his thoughts here.

One of the phrases he used was the tension of desire. Now this is something we’re all familiar with, particularly those of us who read or write romance. Romance isn’t so much the culmination of two people falling in love—after all, that usually happens at the end, when those pages are dwindling. Rather the story is about the journey toward that moment, which is of course rife with tension.

Interestingly, there is tension in nearly every kind of desire. Pastor Stevens talked about the normal, every day desires we have. What we want vs. what we really want. We desire to get fit enough to run a marathon, so we decide to take the necessary steps: get up early, condition our body to run by running. But instead we roll over for the extra sleep. So what we really want is to indulge that immediate desire (sleep) rather than the harder, longer term desire (getting in shape).

It’s important to realize we’re creatures of desire, which is probably why we enjoy reading about the goals and desires of interesting characters. Sometimes our desires can bring us closer to God, and then there are the times that they don’t. Paul summarized it well in Romans 7:15-25 where he talked about desiring to do what is good but realizing he doesn’t.

Which leads us to the explanation of today’s blog title: the circle of desire and delight. As Pastor Stevens put it, what we desire, we delight in and what we delight in we desire more.

So how do we control our desires, once we’ve come to the same discovery as Paul, that we all have this natural tendency toward wretchedness?

One option is to cut out everything delightful. Not gonna fall for those temptations if we shut ourselves inside a tight little cocoon, right? Oh yeah, that sounds just like the abundant life God wants us to have.

The answer is, of course, in the Bible. I’m convinced the Bible is exactly the right length because it includes just enough biographies and personal accounts to apply in one way or another to just about every situation a human can face. The answer to handling our desires is found in Psalms.

Ps. 37:4: Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

So there it is. The more we desire the Lord the more we’ll delight in Him. The more we delight in Him the more we desire Him.

The thought for this week: How can we delight in God today? And whatever we do desire, will it lead us closer to delighting in God?

It’s Monday, the universal favorite day of the week for those of us who absolutely love our jobs. I’m already delighting in that, but today and the rest of the week I’m going to look for other things that remind me of God, of the countless gifts He’s sent my way, of my gratitude for giving us a Book that holds the answers  . . .