What Do You Want? 

Secular psychotherapist, Irvin Yalom tells about leading a seminar attended by white-collar, have-it-all-together types. As he begins, he asks them to stand face-to-face with one other person and ask each other, “What do you want? What do you really want.” He explains that within minutes, the room is rocked by emotion. People cry out, “I want a relationship with my Dad that I never had.” “I want my marriage back.” “I want…”

Yalom is certainly no biblical counselor and his theories lack theological foundation. He has, at least, stumbled upon one aspect of God’s design for our soul—affections, longings, desires, and wants.

Recently I was reflecting on our deepest desires as portrayed by Christ in the Lord’s Prayer. Ponder with me what we were most deeply designed to desire.

Wanting to Glorify God

“Hallowed be Thy name.” As originally created by God and as redeemed and regenerated by Christ, our utmost longing is to live lives that glorify God—that exalt the most exalted Being in the universe. We want to please our Heavenly Father by proclaiming His glory through our lives.

Wanting the Renewal of All Things

“Thy kingdom come.” What do you want? We want God’s rule in our souls and God’s governance in our world. God designed us to surrender all to our heavenly Father and to enjoy His reign. God designed us to participate in His rule—we want to be empowered to fulfill God’s purpose for our lives in God’s world.

Wanting What God Wants

“Thy will be done.” In the garden, Jesus prayed the deepest desire of every redeemed heart: “Not my will, but Thine be done.” At a surface, fleshly level, we all want what we want and we want it now! But in the core of the new creation we are in Christ, we want nothing more than whatever God wants. God created us so that our wants echo His eternal will.

Wanting God-Dependence

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Our world’s script insists that we be independent, self-sufficient. But the deepest cry of our soul is for God-dependence. We want to entrust ourselves to Christ.

Wanting Reconciled Relationships

“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Those folks in Yalom’s seminars longed for relationships made whole…with parents, with spouses. Unknowingly, they were tapping into God’s design for us to long for shalom: peace with God, with one another, and even within our own souls. They, like every image bearer, long to enjoy God through Christ and to enjoy one another because of Christ.

Wanting to Be Like Christ

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” We long to emulate our heavenly Father, just like any child longs to imitate their parent. At the fleshly level, we may revel in the pleasures of sin for a season, but in the core of our new heart, we long to revel to live victorious lives that reflect the victory of Christ over sin. We long to increasingly reflect the image of God in Christ.

What Do You Want?

C. S. Lewis famously noted that our desires are too weak.

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, we are like ignorant children who want to continue making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Look in the mirror of eternity and ask yourself, “What do I want? What do I really want.”

If our deepest spiritual affections are less than what Jesus prayed in the Lord’s Prayer, then our wants are too weak.

“Holy Spirit, enliven my affections so that my wants are what God designed me for. May I most deeply want:

• To Glorify God: To Exalt God

• The Renewal of All Things: To Live Empowered by God

• What God Wants: To Echo God

• God-Dependence: To Entrust Myself to God

• Reconciled Relationships: To Enjoy God and One Another

• To Be Like Christ: To Emulate God.”

Join the Conversation

What do you want? What do you really want?

Returning to My First Love

Note: The following material is taken from Soul Physicians. It is Part Three in a series on putting off the old me and putting on the new me in Christ. Read Part One, How to Break the Stranglehold of Strongholds. Read Part Two, Christian: Do You Know Who You Are?

Putting Off Our Old Impure Affections

Satan’s strategy is to belittle Christ’s glory and then to exalt himself, all in the sick hope of causing us to be unfaithful to Christ. He attempts to tempt us with foolish mindsets about God so he can allure us toward false lovers of the soul. Satan shrinks Christ so that we end up with a Lover so small that we fail to relentlessly worship and adore Him and we fail to see Christ as uniquely and supremely worthy.

“I Divorce the Adulterous False Lovers of My Soul”

Rationally, we must put off our old foolish mindsets by saying, “I repent of the insane idols of my heart.” Relationally, we must put off our old false lovers by saying, “I divorce the adulterous false lovers of my soul.” We no longer live like we used to because Christ has returned us to the purity of virgin brides who are motivated by gratitude to passionately love God.

Following Jesus always means not following fleshly affections, impulses, appetites, whims, and dreams. It always means pursuing Him with desperate desire, knowing that He alone quenches our soul’s deepest thirsts. Christ calls us to mortify, crucify, and put to death all fleshly longings.

Affections, longings, thirsts, delights, and desires are “where the action is.” Modern Christianity reduces life to the externals of behavior while the significance of motivating desire is insufficiently emphasized. Our old flesh was habituated not simply to do evil but also and more insidiously, to love evil. Our flesh is ingrained toward patterns of false lovers from its years of disconnection from God. In Christ we have put off these patterns and must daily rid ourselves of any remnants.

Our God-created, renewed appetites face the tension of battling fleshly, worldly, satanic desires. Temptation entices us, awakening the old dead lusts through the attraction, lure, bait, and pull of sin (James 1:13-15). Sin deceives us through its offer of pleasure, fulfillment, and satisfaction. Psalm 1 pictures us as living organisms searching for nourishment. Where do we drink? From the Spring of Living Water or from broken cisterns that hold no water?

False Lovers and Suffering

When faced with suffering, I’m tempted first to think, “Life is bad and so is God.” If I surrender to this fleshly mindset, then I’m easy game for the allure of false lovers who seem to promise protection, comfort, ease, or at least enough pleasure to cause me to temporarily forget my pain.

In divorcing the adulterous false lovers of my soul, I cry out to Father, “I’ve been a relational prodigal. I now reject my past pattern of fearful flight from Father and I put on faith in you as my Forgiving Father. I abolish my fear of cosmic condemnation, of personal and eternal rejection. I return to original trust. When life is bad, I cling to you as my Supreme Good. I say, ‘My flesh and my heart may fail, but God you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.’”

When faced with suffering, I’m also tempted to think, “Christ is not worth the wait.” Then I’m easy prey for the roaring Lion who disguises himself as an angel of light promising to guide me in his everlasting way. In divorcing myself from Satan, I say to Christ, “I confess as sin my pursuit of false lovers of the soul and put on sole devotion to You. I put off my spiritual adultery. When life is bad, I remind myself, ‘Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You.’”

When faced with suffering, I’m sometimes tempted to think, “Depending on God is foolish, I had better take care of myself.” Having been strangled by this stronghold, I tumble down into the pit of worshipping false gods of my own invention. In divorcing myself from these false gods, I say to the Holy Spirit, “Dear Spirit, I exterminate my distorted desires. I put off my self-sufficient self-satisfaction. I confess as sin my denial of Christ-sufficiency. My broken cisterns are filthy and useless. I’ve sinned by forsaking my Spring of Living Water and I now acknowledge this for what it is—spiritual adultery.”

False Lovers and Besetting Sins

When faced with a besetting sin that yanks me here and there like a yo-yo and tosses me about like a rag doll in a Doberman’s mouth, I must mortify my fleshly desire. I confess that:

“I’ve allowed my religious affections to grow cold, my love to become lukewarm. I’ve buried the visio Dei—the beatific vision of God. I’ve rejected God as my highest joy, my greatest delight. I’ve replaced God my Hero with false heroes. I’ve replaced God my Lover with false lovers. I’ve not related to You as a good God with a supremely good heart. I have a fundamental worshipping nature, but I’ve not been putting off the fleshly tendency to worship anything or anyone but God. So right now I put off trust in non-God and put on trust in God. In Christ’s resurrection power I put off my false passions, my delighting in lesser gods, my sinfully misdirected longings, and my pursuit of God-designed desires in God-prohibited ways.”

The Rest of the Story

Relationally divorcing the adulterous lovers of our soul is the principle we follow for putting off false lovers. What is the process? Join us in Part 4 for the rest of the story.

Join the Conversation

1. Why has modern Christianity reduced life to external behaviors and reduced the significance of desires of the heart?

2. In what ways have we been habituated not simply to do evil, but to love evil?