Deeper Places by Matthew Jacoby

Author:Matthew Jacoby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012120, Bible. O.T. Psalms—Devotional use
ISBN: 9781441242532
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

9

The Liberation of Desire

Delight yourself in the LORD

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

The Power of Desire

Our desires determine our lives. We will always pursue and act according to what we desire the most in any moment. Rational thought has no power over desire. A heroin addict knows that heroin will ruin his life, but he still injects it into his veins. No amount of rational dissuasion will change this. Why? Because we always follow the strongest desire we have in any moment. The way to escape a destructive desire is not to try to deny the desire. This never works. We can overcome one desire only with another greater desire. Where one desire clashes with another, the greater desire will turn the lesser desire into repulsion precisely because it threatens the greater desire.

Many people claim to want to know God, but because they have a greater desire for something that they intuitively know God will challenge, they inevitably shield themselves from God. This process is rarely obvious and most often subconscious. It is not uncommon for people to be vexed at God’s seeming absence from them when in fact it is they who are subconsciously defending themselves against God. The solution to this scenario is first of all to make ourselves conscious of what we really desire. But even when we are conscious of what we desire, it is impossible to change that desire just by self-will. How do we change what we want when we want what we want more than we want to change?

We cannot break out of this cycle without some external intervention. Thankfully, God provides that external help. He breaks the cycle of desire by downloading his desires directly into our hearts, as God said through Ezekiel: “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezek. 36:27). What the Holy Spirit delivers to our hearts with his indwelling presence is a choice. We are now able to choose one desire over another, and the desire we choose is the one that will grow.

In every seeking psalm, the psalmist chooses one desire over another. He chooses to be dependent on God over his propensity to independently solve his own problems. When David declares his famous “one thing I ask” prayer, he is not only exercising the desire for God that had taken hold of his heart but also willing that desire to increasingly overpower his heart and become preeminent. This is an expression of the reorientation of desire that is taking place in his situation of hardship. David’s desire itself is being reoriented toward its intended goal:

One thing I ask of the LORD,

this is what I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to seek him in his temple. (Ps. 27:4)

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