Misplaced Desires

I believe that all our problems stem from misplaced desires. 


God has made us in His image...and along with that image-bearing comes strong desire.  Let's look at some basic human desires...the desire to be loved, the desire for comfort, the desire for peace, the desire for forgiveness, the desire for success, the desire for recognition, the desire for intimacy.  We seek the fulfillment of these desires...they drive us.  Desire is a good thing.  "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12  The problem, though, is with the source of our fulfillment.  If we seek perfect love in another person, or in ourselves, we will be let down.  If we seek success by the way of money or possessions, that can all disappear.  It doesn't take much for the house of cards we build through earthly relationships or material things to come crashing down.  Just a breath, and it's all gone.  That's the nature of the sin-sick world in which we live.  And even if your house of cards is a skyscraper, you'll be sitting on top, empty inside.  "All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.  What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.  Is there a thing of which it is said, 'See, this is new'?  It has already been in the ages before us."  Ecclesiastes 1:8-10  These words were written by King Solomon, who literally had it all.  But another man said something on which we can hang all our desires.  "And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new."  Revelation 21:5

All our desires are fulfilled perfectly in the person of Jesus Christ.  If you seek satisfaction anywhere else, you will be utterly dissatisfied.  He loves us perfectly.  Only He knows our suffering completely, so only He can completely comfort us.  He is the Prince of Peace.  He forgives us with His own blood.  Seeking His kingdom will bring the only success which lasts for eternity.  Only He sees us fully and knows us, and lifts us up with Him to new life as heirs...calling us His brothers and sisters!  How can anyone be more intimate than the Holy Spirit of God inside us, presenting our hearts' desires before the only one who can fulfill them?  

Don't settle for the status-quo that comes with this world and its people.  Desire the living God!  "To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment."  Revelation 21:6b  Come to the fountain and thirst no more!

'When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”'  John 4:7-14

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