Some Thoughts about God and Desire: Part 3

Part of being human is wanting more than one thing at the same time. Sometimes the two things we want conflict with one another. Take eating and sleeping, for instance, our most basic bodily needs. Have you ever been so tired that all you wanted to do was sleep? So tired you could hardly get out of bed? But you were hungry, too?

As a midwife, this happens to me after a very long labor and birth. As an international traveler, it happens to me when the journey is long, and the jet-lag is severe. I usually force myself to get up, eat something small, and then go back to bed. Sleep at that time feels so good, and food tastes so good, too, because I am really hungry. There is a proverb that says, “To the hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet.”

The conflict between eating and sleeping is easily resolved, just a simple matter of doing one first and then the other. It’s a matter of timing. One thing waits on another, and the desire for both is fulfilled. Delay is minimal, thank God, because we need both sleep and nourishment to live.

It’s important to understand the role of Time in the fulfillment of our desires, especially our deepest desires — the ones that go beyond eating and sleeping — the ones that are in the heart.

When Jesus was going to the Cross, he stopped to pray in a garden. He knew he was going to suffer, and he didn’t want to suffer the agony of torture and death. So he prayed to God, the Father, and he said:

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Jesus prayed, just as he had taught his disciples to pray, that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. He wanted two things at the same time, two things that were in conflict with one another: to avoid suffering and pain and, at the same time, to go through it in order to accomplish God’s will — the atonement for sin, the redemption of humanity, so that the whole world would be reconciled to God and experience salvation.

For those who put their trust in Jesus, maturing in faith means surrendering our conflicting desires — our desire to have two opposing things at the same time — to God’s will and God’s timing.

To desire God’s will above all other desires is to become like Jesus.

Look into this cup:
what do you see?
It’s the image of suffering
that saved you and me.

The Light in this wine,
never ages or fades,
but lives as a sign,
beautiful in eternity.

jb

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Some Thoughts about God and Desire: Part 2

Some people say that the Bible is a book of answers, but it is also a book of questions. The questions draw our hearts toward the Divine. All of the questions in the Bible are critical to spiritual formation. One of them stands out to me. In the synoptic gospels, I read that Jesus, the God-Man, asks a blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Matt. 20:32, Mark 10:51, and Luke 18:41).

This is a powerful question. Why does Jesus ask it? If he knows everything already, does he need to ask? And isn’t it obvious what the blind man wants? Wouldn’t anyone want the same thing?

The blind man replies, “Teacher, I want to see.”

When Jesus asks the blind man what he wants him to do for him, the blind man only says what he wants, not what he wants Jesus to do for him. He could have said, “I want you to give me my sight,” but he leaves this implied. Was he afraid to ask Jesus to do for him what he really desired? How many of us are afraid? Do we think that Jesus cannot, or will not, do for us what we ask?

But Jesus understands the man’s desires. He doesn’t ask the man this hard question because he doesn’t know the answer, but because he does. He wants to have a conversation — a relationship — with the man that leads to true healing. Healing is never simply physical. It is spiritual, emotional, and relational. Jesus wants this man’s trust in God to grow.

In Psalm 37:4, it says, “Delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” God does give us what we want. He also creates the desires of our hearts:  he causes them to grow within our hearts as we grow in the joy and delight of relationship with him.

Jesus healed the blind man. The blind man received his sight from the Lord. Jesus did this not only so that the blind man would see, but so that we would.

“In his light, we see LIGHT” (Ps. 36:9).

Seeing in the Light

by After Death (Ari)

 

 

 

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Some Thoughts about God and Desire

God knows what we truly want.

Ironically, we don’t!

Our feelings can and do change from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. Part of this is internal chemistry shifts, some a response to external pressure. There are many factors that go into why our desires change.

But imagine this for a moment:  say you had never tasted a dark chocolate truffle. How would you even know you wanted it if you had never experienced it? But say you had tasted, I don’t know, red beans or apples or cheese. Let’s say there was a day when you couldn’t have one of your favorite foods. So you asked God for your favorite thing — your favorite thing so far — and he said no. Then he offered you chocolate.

You had never had chocolate before, remember, so you don’t know how good it can taste. Would you try it? Or would you reject it because God wasn’t giving you what you asked for, the thing you thought you wanted the most?

It sometimes takes looking back at years of walking by faith with the Lord to realize that God takes away, but he also gives. You are going in one direction, and you want to go that way, and God turns you in a new direction you think you don’t want to go. But when you arrive at the new destination (or come full circle or whatever it is), you are surprised to be happy.

I’ve noticed that God prunes things out of our lives — our lives are like trees — so we will grow in a different direction. We don’t have endless time and energy, like God does, so our growth has to be directed with a purpose. Sometimes that means cutting things out. But sometimes, God restores. He grafts back in something that was cut out — or he grafts into our lives something entirely new.

If we are living in relationship with God, we are always growing. He is always (metaphorically speaking, of course) offering us new kinds of chocolate! There is something so richly celebratory, extraordinary, and amazing about walking by faith.

The Lord gives, and he takes away, and he gives again.

God is the Great Gift-Giver.

Spiritual Gift

 

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God Speaks to Job Out of the Whirlwind

The Lord Answers Job

38 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words
without knowledge?

³ Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶ On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
⁷ when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
⁹ when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
¹⁰ and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
¹¹ and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

¹² “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
¹³ that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
¹⁴ It is changed like clay under the seal,
and its features stand out like a garment.
¹⁵ From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶ “Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
¹⁸ Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.

¹⁹ “Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
²⁰ that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
²¹ You know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!

²² “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
²³ which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war?
²⁴ What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

²⁵ “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain
and a way for the thunderbolt,
²⁶ to bring rain on a land where no man is,
on the desert in which there is no man,
²⁷ to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground sprout with grass?

²⁸ “Has the rain a father,
or who has begotten the drops of dew?
²⁹ From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?
³⁰ The waters become hard like stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen.

³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loose the cords of Orion?
³² Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
or can you guide the Bear with its children?
³³ Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?

³⁴ “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
that a flood of waters may cover you?
³⁵ Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go
and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the inward parts
or given understanding to the mind?
³⁷ Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
³⁸ when the dust runs into a mass
and the clods stick fast together?

³⁹ “Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in their thicket?
⁴¹ Who provides for the raven its prey,
when its young ones cry to God for help,
and wander about for lack of food?

39 “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the does?
² Can you number the months that they fulfill,
and do you know the time when they give birth,
³ when they crouch, bring forth their offspring,
and are delivered of their young?
⁴ Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open;
they go out and do not return to them.

⁵ “Who has let the wild donkey go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,
⁶ to whom I have given the arid plain for his home
and the salt land for his dwelling place?
⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city;
he hears not the shouts of the driver.
⁸ He ranges the mountains as his pasture,
and he searches after every green thing.

⁹ “Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
Will he spend the night at your manger?
¹⁰ Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes,
or will he harrow the valleys after you?
¹¹ Will you depend on him because his strength is great,
and will you leave to him your labor?
¹² Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain
and gather it to your threshing floor?

¹³ “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly,
but are they the pinions and plumage of love?
¹⁴ For she leaves her eggs to the earth
and lets them be warmed on the ground,
¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them
and that the wild beast may trample them.
¹⁶ She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers;
though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear,
¹⁷ because God has made her forget wisdom
and given her no share in understanding.
¹⁸ When she rouses herself to flee,
she laughs at the horse and his rider.

¹⁹ “Do you give the horse his might?
Do you clothe his neck with a mane?
²⁰ Do you make him leap like the locust?
His majestic snorting is terrifying.
²¹ He paws in the valley and exults in his strength;
he goes out to meet the weapons.
²² He laughs at fear and is not dismayed;
he does not turn back from the sword.
²³ Upon him rattle the quiver,
the flashing spear, and the javelin.
²⁴ With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground;
he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
²⁵ When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’
He smells the battle from afar,
the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶ “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars
and spreads his wings toward the south?
²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up
and makes his nest on high?
²⁸ On the rock he dwells and makes his home,
on the rocky crag and stronghold.
²⁹ From there he spies out the prey;
his eyes behold it from far away.
³⁰ His young ones suck up blood,
and where the slain are, there is he.”

40 And the Lord said to Job:

² “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

 Job 38-40:2

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A Significant Snowfall

The time it takes —
for snowflakes to whiten
distant pines

Lorraine Ellis Harr
in HAIKU MIND (Shambhala, 2008)

Commentary: About five years ago, my family decided to go to Tahoe, making the trek from our home San Francisco Bay Area up north. My father and I drove up in one car, and he was talking to me about SpongeBob Squarepants, a cartoon I had never seen before. (Imagine hearing that cartoon described without ever having seen it!) But as he spoke, I was looking out at the landscape, which was covered with a new-fallen snow.

It amazed me how instantaneously the snow changed the whole world. One moment, everything was ordinary as far as the eye could see. It was simply the end of autumn. The next moment, everything was extraordinary: sparkling, pure white, heaven come down to earth to make a wonderland more beautiful than imagination or memory could have conjured up.

It occurred to me that just as quickly as God can change the landscape, He can change our lives and our hearts. The snowfall of his beauty and grace can transform everything instantly. This was deeply reassuring to me at the time.

For we often find ourselves waiting a long time for God to intervene in our circumstances. Or, if our circumstances are causing us to suffer, it may feel as if the suffering will never end. But there are surprising bridges over troubled waters in our near future.

Beyond them is not only the snowfall, but the spring.

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