Being is Desiring...

"Desire is often talked about as something we ought to overcome. Still, being is desiring: our bodies, our minds, our hearts, and our souls are full of desires. Some are unruly, turbulent, and very distracting; some make us think deep thoughts and see great visions; some teach us how to love; and some keep us searching for God. Our desire for God is the desire that should guide all other desires. Otherwise our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls become one another's enemies and our inner lives become chaotic, leading us to despair and self-destruction.

Spiritual disciplines are not ways to eradicate all our desires, but ways to order them so that they can serve one another and together serve God."

- Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

I have gone through extended phases in my life where I believed (or was led to believe) that all my desires were wrong. This led to a false sense of fear and and overwhelming feeling of worry. This idea that all desires were wrong desires led to me to believe that if I was content or happy doing something, it was not of God. I got this warped idea that if it wasn't difficult, it wasn't the right path. These things are simply not true and not of God.

Our desires can be a really good thing. A desire to please God that permeates our existence will redeem and reorder other desires that are, as Nouwen put it, a little "unruly" and slightly irrational. The desire and the need for love and community and support is not a bad thing. A desire to make a lasting impression in the world is not a bad desire. Even the desire for another person is not a bad thing. When all of our desires come under our ultimate desire to love God and love people, they are generally good and most certainly of God. God does desire to give us "the desires of our heart" as long as those desires are in keeping with His one desire for us (Psalm 37:4). And what is that but that we know Him and make Him known to others? Far better than we do, He knows our heart's desires and what we need. Let us trust Him to guide us and, in turn, trust ourselves to walk.