How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Psalm 84:1-2 (NRSV)
As humans, we are made to desire. The longings we feel are not to be discounted or easily ignored. In fact, they are windows into the state of our soul and health of our heart. So often, the problem is not with desire but is found with the nature of our desire. In short, we love the wrong things.
When our hearts are captured by disordered desires, the solution is not to stop desiring. A failure to desire is a failure to be human and who and how God has uniquely created you to be. God gave you desires as a gift, as a means by which we are made aware of his goodness, grace, mercy, and love.
The Psalms the hymn book of the bible are filled with language of desire and intimate prayers of longing. We see this in Psalm 84: “My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord.” This psalm is an unapologetic embrace of rightly ordered desire and passion. Our problem in life is not that we burn with passion but that we burn with passion for something or someone other than God.
What is it that you desire the most in this life? Fame? Success? Marriage? Children? Power? Whatever it may be for you, the problem often is not with the thing itself, but the fact that it replaces and takes away from your ultimate call to desire the Lord above all things. You and I therefore must choose today to actively and intentionally cultivate holy desires.
The things you desire do not simply happen to you in a passive way. No, we make choices and decisions that lead to the deepening and expansion of our loves. So today, by the power of the Spirit at work in you, choose to pursue God through virtuous habits of faith that deepen your longing for him.
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