desire

Word of the Year Review

Well, it’s been almost a year that I’ve been focusing on this one word, Content. This should be the time when I tell you all how incredibly content I’ve become and then we all rejoice together.

Um, how about instead I just tell you what I’ve learned?

Naturally when you try to do something, you first get to discover how much you are not that something. I began the year by learning to recognize what makes me discontent. Mainly it stems from comparison – comparing my life to someone else’s, to where I thought I’d be or what I thought I’d have at this point, comparing it to some ideal I’ve constructed in my head that may or may not be realistic (95% of the time it is not). In the process, I realized that being discontent gets me nowhere.

I also learned that being content has a lot to do with being clear on what I am called to do, be, and have. God has created me for specific purposes. He has made me who I am, which includes my strengths and weaknesses and gifts and current situation. They are not the same as the next person’s; that would be boring and pointless. When I have clarity on who I am and what He wants for me, I can rest in living within those boundaries.

Being content has a lot to do with remembering that I am a child, with keeping the posture of a child who believes that her Father knows best. It may not always be what I think I want, but I will trust and obey because it is for my good.

I think I have been learning too that contentment is different than resignation. Resignation is giving up, losing hope, killing desire. Contentment keeps desire alive but believes that if it isn’t being satisfied right now, there’s a reason.

So am I content? I would say I am more content, and that I have learned that I have a greater capacity to choose contentment than I realized, especially when I am aware of the state of my heart. I’m thankful for all God put in my life this year to teach me these things.

What about you? Did you see growth in your one word? (this is not a rhetorical question – I really do want to know!)

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An Open Letter to the World

Somewhere early on, I concluded that my heart was not important.

The world doesn’t often ask for our hearts. It asks for our cooperation, our performance, our silence, our strength, our appearance, our obedience, but not our hearts. So I set mine aside and gave what the world asked of me instead. We all do, in our own ways.

But we can’t live without our hearts, and God knows it.

So He started chipping away at the carefully constructed strategies I’d built around my heart to protect it; the ways I strive to impress, to perform, to be admirable. He talked to me about His love, His freedom, His grace. He told me that yes, He does want my heart. All of it. And not just the parts I find acceptable or pleasing or enjoyable. Not just the positive emotions, but the anger and doubts and fears and shame and grief and depravity. He has spent years stripping away the layers on the outside, while He fills me up from the inside, trying to show me that life is meant to be lived wholeheartedly, open heartedly, big heartedly. He’s been waking me up, bringing me to back to life.

I would love to say that trying to live with my whole heart is easy, but it’s isn’t. Often, it means living with an ache – of griefs recognized, hurts owned, desires unmet. It is living in the in between, a belly-exposed kind of vulnerability.

But it’s in this place that I am learning how important my heart is. When I own my whole heart, there is freedom, authenticity, a greater capacity to love and be loved. And it’s not only for me, but for others as well. When I own what is in my heart and share it, it draws people. It gives permission to others to bring their hearts too. As my heart grows, I cannot help but want to help others find the depths of theirs. My heart breaks when I see others numb, ignore, kill, and shame their own hearts. It is not how we were meant to live.

So my hope, my mission in life, is to be an authentic voice that calls others to wholeheartedly live our their true selves in Christ. We cannot be all that we are called to be in Christ if we leave our hearts behind. By God’s grace, I hope to continue on this journey of living with my whole heart, and helping others to do the same.

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Enough

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Throughout our time in Asia, God reminded me of a verse from Psalm 16:5, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup.” I took that to mean that whatever came my way, He was in control of it, and it was good for me and my growth in Christlikeness.

I can’t tell you how many times it didn’t feel like that was true. When you’re standing on the street corner with your 3 month old strapped to your chest and three consecutive cabs that you hail get snaked by other people, you can tell yourself, “This is assigned, this is assigned, this assigned” but it’s not easy to rest in. I’d rather have the ride to the hospital than a lesson in patience and forgiveness, thank you very much.

Lately, though, I’ve been looking at this verse differently (and not because I’m hoping it means I get to skirt tough situations). When I read it in the ESV, it says, “Lord, YOU are my chosen portion and my cup.” Huh. That takes me out of my circumstances altogether.

Over and over through these last few months, God has brought me back to this truth: He is enough for me. He is all that I need. He is what satisfies.

Our hearts are wily beasts. They hunger and thirst and desire and want. I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong. But I know that when I hunger and thirst and desire and want things outside of God, I will inevitable be disappointed. They will become idols, idols who cannot satisfy.

So He calls me back to Him, to desiring Him. He calls me back to see that He is enough. He is what I truly want. He is exactly all I need.

He is enough.

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Desire

What do you do with desire?

I’m not talking about “I desire bacon” or, “I desire a tropical vacation.”

I’m talking about deep heart desires, like the desire to be loved, respected, needed, safe, important, powerful, competent, noticed. If I don’t get bacon on any given day, I’m not going to be hurt. I’m not even going to be hurt if I don’t get chocolate, though maybe a little disappointed. But if my desire to be loved goes unmet, there is potential for deep ache. So what do I do?

Most people would agree there are two main directions we sway. One is to demand that desire is met. This often looks like anger and contempt. My kids disobey, and I insist that they change. I yell and put my foot down and demand that they do what I ask. Why? Because that’s what parents should do? No – there are other ways to obedience. I do it because at a deep heart level, I don’t feel respected by them, and I hate that. Their disobedience feels unloving, and I want to be loved and respected.

So I could go another route. I could deaden my desire. This feels like the more “Christian” option. I can tell myself that I don’t care. I deny. I kill the desire. I tell myself that I am selfish for wanting it, foolish for looking to children to satisfy a desire. This is nothing more than shaming ourselves for having a legitimate desire. The collateral damage of this is that we begin to shame others for their desires as well.

Is there a middle ground? I believe so. It’s what a friend of ours last night called, “liminal space.” It’s the place where you acknowledge the desire and you sit with it. I believe it’s a place where you honor the desire. You say, “This is a true desire, a God-given desire.” The difficulty of this in between place is that there is no guarantee that the desire will be met. In fact, often it’s not. So we sit with the ache.

Why on earth would we do that? Why would we intentionally put ourselves in such a place of vulnerability? Personally, I think it’s because that’s what God does. God desires. He desires relationship with us. He desires our love, our respect, our worship, our attention. He doesn’t demand it. He never says He doesn’t care anymore whether or not we respond to Him. He sits in the ache, longing for us. Like the father in the story of the prodigal son, He waits every day, bearing the disappointment, in the hopes that something good will come. What He desires will happen.

So I believe that the liminal space is the place where God wants us to live because He lives there too. He wants us to develop hearts like His, hearts that are alive and full of desire. Hearts that are soft and vulnerable and honest. He wants us to honor the desires He has created in us.

What do you desire? And what are you doing with it?

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