What does it mean to have God-shaped desires? On the Monday edition of Live the Promise Susie talks with Jen Pollock Michel about what it means to redeem our desires.
“Jesus calls His followers to self-sacrifice – I thought that just meant I was guaranteed to be following God’s will if I didn’t like it.” Jen says, it’s actually the other way around. “If we’re walking in desire, then sacrifice begins to make more sense.”
Jen shares how she struggled with the concept of wanting once she became a Christian – for her, desire felt “dangerous. Desire was part of my former life, not my new life. Suffering is important to my character, and so God’s goodness is not really something I can experience in the here and now – or maybe in a spiritual sense, but not necessarily earthly pleasure.”
In Jen’s book, , she unpacks several important truths about our God-wired desires.
• Desire often gets a bad reputation.
“There’s a lot of nervousness when people hear I want to talk about desire and its role in the life of faith. It’s like a contagion, a germ, that’s going to corrupt the internal hardware of our hearts.”
• Needs are shelter, food, community, and water. Wants are things that may not be necessary for physical survival. Desires are linked to the heart.
• It’s possible to carry a desire in our heart that is good, but that God doesn’t give us in this life.
• Following a desire takes risk, authentic community and wrestling with your own heart.
• Others in God’s kingdom can have the same desire we do – to serve others, to write music, to marry, to write a book – without negating or diminishing our own desire and call.
Jen offers us a final word.
“Desire is becoming corrupted when it becomes ultimate. Jesus says ‘I am the friend who will never leave you or forsake you.’ This is an opportunity to live our lives in community with the Creator of the universe. Sometimes it’s hard to know that is our highest blessing and joy when another desire goes unfulfilled.”
Key Scriptures: Mark 8:34; Psalm 16:11
Theme Song: Simplicity by Rend Collective
Highlight : Discern your desires, don’t dismiss them
This program has been previously aired.
