Our Desires and His Joy

Once again, Elyse Fitzpatrick's Idols of the Heart, provide the backdrop for my musings.

"Remember that your strongest desires, the things you are most passionate about are what ultimately define your worship." pg 138.

We cannot be happy nor can we experience real joy when our desires are contrary to that for which we have been created. We say that someone is as "happy as a lark". What lark are we thinking of? The lark who is singing, flying, nesting..doing all the things she is created to do. We are not thinking of a caged lark. Or a lark who is trying to swim. Or a lark who would rather be a bear. We are thinking of a lark who wants to be a lark!

How often are we pulled this way and that, by various influences, to love that which we do not love, to desire that which we do not want. A quote in our high school business teacher's office read something like this: "A Salesman is a professional needs creator." And oh, are we sold!

But not only by the those without...but by our old man within. In fact, we, on our own, no longer desire the things that we, in our original state, would have delighted in! Remember the joy of Adam and Eve as they walked in the cool of the day, fellowshipping with their Creator?

^{Galatians 5:17} "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish."

By His spirit, we need to identify our desires. What, truly, are we worshipping. As Elyse says elsewhere in this book, what we are willing to sin for is what we are truly worshipping. Ok, we aren't shoplifting or robbing a bank. We aren't bar hopping or unfaithful (at least in real life) to our spouse. What angers us..when someone gets in our way and upsets our plans? What will we hedge a bit to obtain? What will be just a tiny bit deceptive to prove?

So, here we are, desiring things that the New Man does not want, reveling in that which the new man despises...and worse yet, though there is a faint hint of a longing for our Father, it is often a vague, undefined desire. Often undefined, because we do not go after it. We do not believe we will find our joy in Him. We know that in coming closer to the Light, our dirtiness will be revealed, so we, ever so politely, ignore it. Where do we go from here. Do not fret. Do not be afraid. He has not left us on our own....More coming!

Ephesians 4:22

¹⁷ This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of^[d] the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; ¹⁹ who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

He has not left us without hope....