Desire: The Language of the Heart
“The language of the heart is the language of desire.”
For so long I have felt like my desires would never be met, and often like they were wrong. I’m the kind of person who always wants more, I’m always desiring more. But when Paula made this comment in the book, my eyes were opened.
“It’s as though we still have a memory of the Garden of Eden, and we are homesick for something we just can’t quite get our hands around here. These longings are the holes n our souls. They tell us something important – that we need God.”
God wants me to keep desiring, wants me to want more, be always wanting more, but He wants me to want Him above all else. My desires show who I am, they are a deep intrinsic part of who I am, and they become more alive the closer I walk with God. As C.S. Lewis said “when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”
When we have our hearts lined up correctly with God, our desires become more like His, our hearts more in tune with what God desires for our own lives and for those He wishes us to have influence in the lives of. Our desires might change a little, some desires may disappear completely as we realise they don’t line up with God’s will. Other desires might even become intensified as we are able to more clearly see God’s plan for them. Perhaps most importantly of all, when our hearts and desires are lined up with God’s will we can be confident in our desires, hopes and dreams, because they are His.
Paula asks this question: “Where would desire take you if you didn’t douse the flame of possibility before someone else attempted to blow it out?” and I add: if we didn’t douse the flames with our own doubts?
Fear of failure, of what others will think, of where desires could take us, these all impact on how we feel about desire – I know that it has in my own life. The beauty of walking close to and setting our hearts close to God’s means that we can let go of these fears because we can trust that God is in control!
Sadly, even when our hearts are set right with God we may not see all of our desires come to fruition. But we can’t let that discourage us from having them, and even going after them in God’s will. We may never know this side of heaven what impact we have had on earth, and we may not live to see all our desires fulfilled. For some of us we are the start of something bigger, some of get to be a part of and see the fruits of what others have started and some of us fall somewhere in the middle.
Reading this chapter has helped me to reignite some of the desires that I had pushed to dark corners of my heart for fear of failure. I felt God prompting me not to give up hope, not to hide my dreams from Him but to give them over to Him for Him to use for His glory.
I don’t know yet where this journey will take me, but my heart feels alive with possibility! I’m prepared for some of my desires to be changed and moulded by God, but somehow I feel lighter for having read this part of the book!
Thanks Paula!
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