An interesting two words…”I desire”.
I went on-line to Blue Letter Bible and typed in those two words and found multiple verses that included that combination.
One in particular.
Allow me to back up for a moment.
I have just completed reading The Obamas by Jodi Kantor and have just begun reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
In between these books I am reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and was given a book tonight about the life of Keith Green.
In between all that, I like to expand my world of non-fiction reading to include some fiction.
With that in mind, I read a section of a book while in a bookstore earlier this evening, entitled All I Wanted.
When I read non-fiction I tend to read about people interacting with people and the complexity of relationships.
Anyway…in this particular book it described a scene where a man and a woman had reached an impass in their relationship, she had found someone else, a little less complicated.
As she was describing to the now “former” boyfriend she summed up her new love interest in this way. “He knew what he wanted and what he wanted was me.”
Wow. To the point blunt and honest. Leaving no question left to ask.
That got me thinking on the way home. What do we want more than anything else? In life, in our hearts, in our souls.
And once we identify what we most want… what do we do then?
In the movie The Pirates of the Carribean is the following exchange.
Jack Sparrow: “True enough, this compass does not point north.”
Elizabeth Swann: “…Where does it point?”
Jack Sparrow: “It points to the thing you want most in this world.”
How true. The compass of our heart points toward that which we want most in this world.
It is probably rare that we become so soberly honest with ourselves that we identify that which we most want on this earth and then voice that desire to God.
Try it.
Don’t worry, what you say to God and that which you want most may be something so selfish and self gratifying that you are hesitant to even voice it. It’s okay…he’s a big God, He can handle it.
Now back to the original intent of this entry, the words “I desire”.
The writer of Psalm 73, a Psalm by Asaph, wrote these what I consider beautiful words in verse 25, “Who have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.”
Asaph had identified where his heart’s compass was directing him.
Interesting I thought is the following verse. That even though he had identified that which he desired most he still felt the need to write the following. “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
I pray on this night that we each can be brave enough to identify that which the compass of our heart directs us to, that which we desire more than anything else and ask God to bring us to the point that besides Him, “I desire nothing on earth.”
JHH
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