"How should we then live?" asked Francis Schafer. Great question, and the best answer for new covenant followers of Christ is, discover your desires, for desire reveals design, as John Eldredge points out in Journey of Desire.
There is much to say about the state of desire these days. As a mythic reality, desire has taken a hit right along with our hearts. We are leery of our desires, by and large. And we would rather follow nearly anything other than our desires. It seems we are still trapped in Jeremiah 17 (the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked).
But God designs us to BE something, and because we ARE a certain thing, we have desires to DO certain things. A bird loves to fly because it is a bird. Bezalel desired to cut stone because God designed him to be a stone cutter.
Look at the people around you. The most striking are those living out a particular desire, be it horse-riding, playing tennis, working on spreadsheets, or inventing toys. They are striking because they are living from their desires--they are led by their own design.
Desire Reveals Design
ReplyDeleteAs of March 2005, my desires seem to reveal that I am some sort of mix of seer and solution provider. This explains why I identify so strongly with the story of Joseph in the Book of Beginnings.