Every day has felt a bit like Christmas at our house lately. Amazon packages arrive in waves. I open them, make a note of who to thank, then bring the contents to work with me.
In my role as Director of Children and Family Ministry at my church, I’m in charge of running VBS (Vacation Bible School). For a week at the end of June, nearly 200 children will gather to learn more about Jesus!
Part of the magic of VBS is decking out our church campus according to the theme (this year: outer space). To that end, I compiled an Amazon wish list of needed décor and supplies and sent the link to the people in our congregation.
I had a moment of panic when a woman reached out to me three days after I had shared the link, wondering why the list was empty! Was there a technical glitch I needed to fix? But when I checked, I discovered that the items had disappeared because they’d all been purchased already.
I was floored by the generosity of our church members. I combed through our supply list again and restocked our wish list.
Everybody wants
It’s easy to identify the needs and desires of our VBS program. It’s harder to be honest about our own longings and desires, beyond the surface-level stuff I could add to a personal wish list.
We are creatures who are made to want. From our first breath out of the womb, we want food, comfort, and shelter. We grow older and we want to learn, to be entertained, to be loved, valued, and accepted. Later, we want to accomplish, to succeed, to live a happy and meaningful life. It’s natural to want.
Trevor Hudson, in his book Seeking God, describes our desires as a two-sided coin: they are both a gift and a danger. Our desires can point us to the truth, beauty, and goodness of our Creator, leading us to seek a closer intimacy with God. And our desires can get distorted and direct us into dangerous and destructive behavior leading us into the kind of self-centeredness that leaves no room for seeking God.
Often, we are driven to solve our discontent by satisfying our surface-level desires, then trying to move on. Let me be the first to say that there’s nothing wrong with turning to a cup of coffee, a show on Netflix, or an impulse buy. But our restlessness could be the cause of something deeper.
Follow the signposts
Can we follow the thread of our desires, excavating the depths of our longings until we hit the root of it? I believe the root of our deepest, truest longings will point us to Christ, the Creator and ultimate satisfier of our souls.
Trevor Hudson writes: “We come to know our deepest desires by sifting through our surface desires. They are necessary signposts on a journey toward what is most true and genuine within us.”
We don’t often dwell on our wants—parents of young children especially are too wrapped up in meeting the needs of others to consider the deeper longings of our own souls. And the busy-ness of life carries us along on its constant waves of activity so that it becomes easiest to live our lives on auto-pilot.
Is it possible that we are orienting our lives towards what the world tells us will bring happiness, meaning, and contentment? Is it possible that our restlessness and discontent could be pointing us to God?
A good and misdirected desire
A few weeks ago, the demands of my job intensified. I noticed I was feeling more stress than usual, and when the workday was done, it was difficult to relax in my own home. At the time, I blamed it on the clutter that had creeped into our living space: overflowing bookshelves, piles of papers that needed sorting, junk stashed in odd places to be dealt with later.
I convinced myself that the inner peace I craved could only be found once I purged, reorganized, and cleaned our house from top to bottom. This was going to be a big job, and the only way to tackle it (in my own infinite wisdom) was to sacrifice one of my precious days of rest to do it all.
My plan did not go well. My husband noted that my stress was only causing more stress.
My desire for a decluttered house was a signpost of my deeper desire for a decluttered mind, which was really a desire for rest, which was ultimately a longing for the peace of God. My quick-fix solution only made me more restless for what I truly wanted.
Bringing our desires to God
Exploring our inner landscape and getting clear on our deepest desires is more of a spiritual practice than a selfish one. In his book Seeking God, Trevor Hudson suggests getting quiet and making a list of everything, big and small, our heart desires. Once finished, start sifting through and reflect which are surface desires and which are deeper desires.
Then read the story of Jesus and Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52. Imagine Jesus is asking you “What do you want me to do for you?” Let that question lead you into an honest conversation with God. Then attend to your deepest desire, the one that seems to be at the root of all the others, the one that reflects your deepest longing for God.
I live in the same semi-cluttered house within the same stressful season at work, but by identifying what I long for, I can bring my request to God (over and over) in prayer.
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*Feature photo from PixiStock
Sarah K. Butterfield 