My Heart Sings

I talked with Mari, the mother of the household where we will stay in April when we travel down.  I was looking forward to going down, but after talking with her, I can't wait to get there! (Probably why I can't sleep.)  She always has this effect on me, and I'm a little ashamed to say that some of it is due to the way she treats me.  She calls me her "muneca linda" (beautiful doll).  I can't really remember anyone ever having such a marvelous nickname for me, and I have to admit that I love the way she and the whole family have welcomed me in.  And I can't wait for the kids going down with me to experience this embrace. My heart sings at the mere thought of being there.


Unfortunately, talking with her always makes me FEEL how much I desire, how I long to be in Guatemala.  And I don't always like this feeling.  I'd much rather "look forward" to something, "feel called" to do something, than experience this aching, longing, for what I hope to come.


So it got me thinking about the whole idea of  "desire."  What it means, if it's good for us, if we can desire too much. . .Can God possibly want me in Guatemala when I want to be there so much?  Is my desire to go just self-centered and self-seeking?  Do I have a "hidden agenda" in all this?


It just so happens that God has taken me back to re-reading the book, The Journey of Desire (subtitle: "Searching for the Life We've Only Dreamed Of") by John Eldredge.  And I wonder if I ever really read it the first time.  It reminds me that Jesus told us He came to bring us life to the full (John 10:10).  And it convicts me of how often I've settled for "life to the mediocre."  For getting by.  For surviving.  For being afraid to ask for more.

Can I really believe that the "desires of my heart" were planted there by God? He tells me that in Ps. 37:  

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." (v. 4)

Do I really believe that He can use my heart's desires to lead me to His plan and purpose for my life?  That God will make all things (even my desires) work together for my good because I  love him? That I have been called according to his purpose? (Rom. 8:28)

And what do I do with the aching of unfulfilled desire?  Isn't it often this aching that leads me to sin?  

There's my answer.  It's not the desire that's wrong.  It's the counterfeit way I try to fulfill this desire myself, on my own terms. By-passing God, if you will.  Rather than taking each desire to Him for fulfillment.  Rather than trusting that He will fulfill them--in His time, in His way.  Trusting that His way will be better than anything I can imagine. 

I need to rest there for a while.  To soak in the truth of His word:

However, as it is written: 

   "No eye has seen,  no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"— ¹⁰but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit

                                                          1 Cor. 2: 9-10

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

                                                          Eph. 3:17b-20

And I realize that maybe the whole reason that we do desire is that our desires were meant to draw us to Him!