
13 Jul Delight and Desire
My husband, John, is about to have his second cataract surgery. The first one was a few weeks ago and he quickly noticed how clearly he could see (cue the music). For two years he’d been complaining that we needed a new TV because the picture wasn’t sharp and clear. Now that he’s had that cloudy obstacle removed from his eye he says he has HD vision… and we don’t need a new TV after all! And that’s exactly what a cataract is: an obstacle that creates blurred vision. More on that in a minute.
Reading and Seeing the Scriptures
This past month I’ve been reading through the short letter of First John. My John and I are taking a book a month from the Scriptures during the summer and reading it over and over again. July is First John – all 5 chapters, every day of the month, going back and forth between different translations. Most people have a tendency to rush through reading the Bible. But repetitive reading of the text helps you to see more clearly what’s there— to discover the details and gain insight to what’s being said, who the key players are, etc. In doing that, our comprehension of the Scripture is tremendously increased! So, yesterday I was reading in the J.B. Phillips New Testament—one of our favorites, when 1 John 2:15-17 grabbed me with the warning: Do not love the world.
Never give your hearts to this world or to any of the things in it. A man cannot love the Father and love the world at the same time. For the whole world-system, based as it is on men’s primitive desires, their greedy ambitions and the glamour of all that they think splendid, is not derived from the Father at all, but from the world itself. The world and all its passionate desires will one day disappear. But the man who is following God’s will is part of the permanent and cannot die.
(1 John 2:15-17, J. B. Phillips, emphasis added)
A couple of disclaimers:
Satan is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). When the Bible speaks about the “world” it’s referring to the humanistic system. The Bible also says that God loves the whole world (John 3:16), but in this instance it is referring to people who live on the Earth. You and I as followers of Christ are warned not to love the world or the things in the world, i.e. Satan’s corrupt value system, because Satan values only what is in direct opposition to God. And since Satan is a liar and a deceiver, he plays to our flesh and promotes the things that appeal to and attract our innate desires.
The world promotes what the world loves.
First John 2:16 spells out exactly what Satan’s system promotes: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Every sin imaginable can be summed up in those three evils. Eugene Peterson puts it plain English: Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. (Read that again.)
Ouch!
The Century of Self
Desire: To want something, especially strongly (Cambridge).
We are all created by our Creator with desire. We’re wired to want. Or in other words, we’re made to crave. And the world (Satan’s corrupt value system) knows it well.
Not so coincidentally, I’ve been watching a fascinating BBC documentary on YouTube, “The Century of Self” by Adam Curtis, on. It highlights the research of Sigmund Freud and his nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays, known as the father of public relations, used his uncle’s discoveries about the human psyche to manipulate people into wanting things they didn’t need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires—and feeding those inner selfish desires with what would make them happy.
Sound familiar?
We’re all victims of massive amounts of advertisements everywhere, beckoning to us like mythological Siren enchantresses,“Come buy! Come taste! Come wear! Come enjoy!” …with big promises to satisfy our desires for things that can never satisfy us. Nothing will ever satisfy the craving, the desire, the want… the I’ve got to have that, except the God who made us that way. Yes, we’re wired by God to desire—and to desire nothing more than Him.
Here’s the problem with the way we’re wired: Desire is never satisfied. Desire doesn’t just stay in our eyeballs. What we see, we want; and what we want, we must have. Truly, we’ve been brainwashed into believing that we need it (whatever it is) in order to be—you guessed it—satisfied. Madison Avenue and the digital marketers of social media make big bucks playing to your psyche and mine, stirring up a desire for what they convince us will satisfy us…make us happy…make us attractive, and popular, and so on. But since desire is never satisfied, we end up craving, wanting, desiring…and mistakenly needing new things all the time. Even before we use up or wear out what we have, we buy what the Mad Men tell us we must have—now. The result is an obstruction of our spiritual vision. Like a cataract, the world has blurred our eyes with counterfeit satisfaction. King Solomon was spot on when he said, “The eye is not satisfied with seeing” (Ecclesiastes 1:7-8). Because the eye, when focused on the world and the world’s goods, cannot see God.
“The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life…” They all go hand in hand; one begets another. Of particular interest to me this morning is the lust of the eyes—the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you (TLB). Most of us are not even aware that we’ve succumbed to the Siren’s call; we’re numb to it, blinded by it. Take an inventory of the things your have. How old is your iPhone or smart phone? Your car? Your purse? Your sofa? The clothes you wear? Do you have the latest and newest of anything? Did you need it, or did you just desire it and buy it because it appealed to you? Let’s call it like it is: We’ve been seduced…hoodwinked by Satan into believing the lie that the world’s goods will satisfy us. We might think, but I can afford it…. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Each new thing we must have is an exchange for the abundant life God offers. When we grab at the world’s goods, when we crave all that we see, we let go of go of God’s goodness to satisfy our desires. Open your heart, your eyes, your mouth, your hands…and let the good Lord fill it with his satisfying goodness (Psalm 81:10, John 7:37).
Something to Think About
The first Bible verse I ever memorized was Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Like a lot of Christians young in their faith, I thought it was the magic verse in which God promised that if I “delighted” in Him, He would give me whatever my heart desires. I had it all wrong. I thought it meant that if I just went to church, and didn’t cuss, God would give me whatever I desired. And what I deeply desired back then was not God. The verse is about God, because the Bible is about God, and that He is the only Giver of what can truly satisfy our heart. As we seek Him—to know Him and to love Him more deeply—what we desire begins to come into alignment with what God desires for us.
What do you desire—and why?
This world can never satisfy our deepest longings. But if we choose to “take delight” in God— to know Him better, love Him more deeply, and find our joy in His ways, He will always provide for us above and beyond our expectations. When Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John 4:14, “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life…,” he meant it! Only Jesus can satisfy the desires of our heart. Only Jesus can give us the kind of rich, satisfying life that leaves us thirsty for more of him. But be warned— the world and its ways will always try to steer you away from the Well that never runs dry.
So, pray for a hunger and thirst for God—to be satisfied in Him, and to desire Him above all else.
One More Thing
I’m a staunch advocate for Biblical literacy: The ability to read and comprehend the Scriptures in your own language. Biblical literacy is not only sorely lacking in the church today but has been referred to as epidemic. Lifeway Research reports that in January 2023, around 100 million adults, or 39% of Americans, said they use the Bible three or more times a year. That equals the lowest number in the 13-year history of the study… This is a problem. Not only because most Christians do not know how to read or understand the Scriptures, but more importantly that they are not engaging in an intimate and dynamic way with the God of Scripture.
May I suggest one of the simplest and very best ways to learn the Scriptures: Repetitive reading. Read an entire book of the Bible, from start to finish, and then read it again, and again. Start with a smaller book or epistle—like the letter of 1 John, or James. Read it in a translation that you can understand (if you’re new to reading the Bible, try the New Living Translation). It’s preferable to read it all in one sitting, every day. Try it for one week, or do what John and I are doing and read a book of the Bible every day for a month. You’ll be amazed at how much you grasp in the simple but profound practice of reading the text repetitively.
Until next week, don’t forget that you are greatly and dearly loved by The King. And let’s start living our beautiful, ordinary lives like it!
I love you!
xo – P❤️