Desire

(circa 1995)

1. INTRO (what is life?)

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they 
may have life, and have it abundantly.
					-- Jesus (John 10:10)

	Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  Jesus is the bread of 
life.  Is life only being alive, breathing.  No, the people were already 
breathing.  Why would he offer them something that they already have?
	Is it just the afterlife?  No because Jesus says that eternal life is 
knowing Him and the Father, and that begins right now.
	From the above quote we see that he wants to elaborate on the 
word life.  He adds "have it abundantly," because he wants to 
distinguish the Christian Life from mere existence.  The Christian Life 
is more than just getting by.

Rocky:  "It's a living."
Mic:  "It's a waste of life."

What is the difference between merely being alive and Jesus-style 
life?

Desire.  Without it, you roll over and play dead.  With it, you grow, 
and growth is life (that's how you can tell someone is alive).  When 
old people lose their spouses, some give up the desire to live, and so 
they die.  

There are some Christians who are walking dead.  They have no 
desire, they are just getting by.  I was becoming one of those last 
year, God is bringing me out of it.


2. SOME QUOTES ABOUT DESIRE

The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial but not as an 
end in itself.  We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses 
in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of 
what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to 
desire.  Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promise of regard and 
the staggering nature of rewards promised in the Gospels it would 
seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex 
and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child 
who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot 
imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.  We are far 
too easily pleased.
					-- CS Lewis

Desire like a God that you may be satisfied like a God.
					-- Traherne

God's talking:  "Desire... is part of the Atomic energy of the soul.  The 
Kingdom of Heaven within you is operated through desire.  Do not 
quench or crush it or suppress it.  Rather offer it to Me.  Offer me 
your most elementary desires, your craving for happiness, for love, 
for self-expression, for well-being, for success, for joy, on any level of 
your being -- offer these desires freely and without shame to Me and 
I will transmute them so that you shall achieve release and 
fulfillment and complete freedom from frustration."
					-- Fr. John Gaynor Banks


3.  READ JOURNAL


4.  THE OBJECT OF YOUR DESIRE (aka Vision)

Be specific (not merely "to be a good person," be brave enough to 
own what you really want.  With me, I was so afraid someone would 
say no, that I would rather not desire at all than to be told no.)

You have not because you ask not.

And why don't we ask.  Because half the time we don't even know 
what to ask for.

You can't get what you want, till you know what you want.
						-- Joe Jackson

You got to have a dream,
Cause if you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true.

Without a vision, the people perish.

Read "That's what the Lonely is for."

Ask yourself what you want, and then be brave enough to ask God 
for it.  
If you are saved, and your heart really wants it, then be brave 
enough to trust that he has placed that desire in you, and go for it.  
Don't just pray, but put some shoe leather on it (I'm talking to 
myself.)

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex 
and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child 
who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot 
imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.  We are far 
too easily pleased.

Go for the holiday at sea.