If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. C.S. Lewis
Desire is so fundamental to our nature that we often overlook its significance. Its guiding force. We are created – designed – to desire and to be satisfied.
Desire and satisfaction were part of Paradise before the fall. When God created the world and saw that it was good, he rested. When Adam and Eve worked the garden each day, they would stop in the evening and walk in the cool of the day beside the divine God of the Universe. And when they were hungry, they found satisfaction from taking the fruit of any tree in the garden.
Except one, of course.
The serpent injected venom into Eve’s desires and bent them toward the forbidden. Forget God and what He said, the serpent suggested, and become like him by eating from this tree.
Eve, having then entertained the idea of going against God’s guidance, looked at the fruit of the tree. The Scriptures say she saw three things that she desired: she saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom.
And so, in an attempt to satisfy those desires, she took the forbidden fruit. And ate it. And then gave some to Adam, who was standing next to her.
Adam and Eve abandoned their natural, divine provisions that would naturally meet their desires and grasped for something outside the realm of God’s desire.
And yet, though we call this event the Fall – or Paradise Lost – what we find is God’s desire only beginning to reveal itself. God came to the garden in the cool of the day to find Adam and Eve, desiring to walk with them. He called to them when he could not find them, desiring their presence. And once they confessed their sin, He covered their shame with animal skins that he sacrificed, desiring to relieve their shame. He handed down discipline and ejected them from the garden, but left them alive and well, desiring to continue to be a part of their lives. And the rest of Scripture is the story of God’s divine pursuit – his holy desire – to win us back from doing the same thing over and over again – trying to gratify our desires with anything other than Him and His provision.
God’s desire is us. And when we loosen our grip on the forbidden fruit and take our eyes off its deceptive appearances, we find that what we really desire ourselves is God. And when God’s desires and ours converge, Paradise is regained.
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We are not running our lives at all. We are being run by our flesh. Fasting is about freedom. Starve the flesh and feed the spirit. John Mark Comer
To fast is to return our attention to ourselves – our spiritual center – our souls.
Its easy to lose touch with our center when we allow the outside world to seize our attention with its sensory, sensational, sensual offerings. And when we focus on these things that couple only with our physical selves, we become self-centered. Egocentric.
And, let’s not forget, we have real physical needs: hunger, thirst, human connection, and much more. We are not bifurcated creatures whose physical and spiritual sides can be separated – not until death, anyway. We are whole beings. Each of us has a soul and a body, woven inextricably together in the Imago Dei.
Even the Lord’s Prayer, as we saw in the previous episode, has a line devoted to asking God to provide our daily bread. So why would we ever spend one or more days shunning that divinely created need?
Fasting has many benefits, but today we will focus on one in particular: that of re-centering – living from the soul. Fasting is a discipline that in the moment may seem pointless, but in the end is a training exercise that yields spiritual strength.
So let’s slow down, and fast.
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The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. Soren Kierkegaard
Our modern ears interpret the word pray as ask God to give me something I want or need.
But the word pray used in the Greek text of the Bible means, literally, to move towards the will of God – so that our will might be exchanged for his.
We see this meaning in play as Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.
This is, perhaps, the most enchanting possibility available to those of us with free will – to choose to to relinquish our will in exchange for his.
This is the purpose of prayer.
Today, we will see the purpose of prayer unfold before us in The Lord’s Prayer that Jesus gave to his disciples – and to us. And the walk through that prayer is awe striking.
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Scripture Meditation Guide for the Lord’s Prayer
Father of us in the heavens – Psalm 139
Hallowed by the name of you – Exodus 3
Come the kingdom of you – Matthew 13:44-46
Be done the will of you as in heaven so also in earth – Luke 22:39-44
The bread of us daily, grant us today – Exodus 16
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil – Daniel 3
For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, Amen. – Psalm 23
The need itself is not the call. Charles Hummel – The Tyranny of the Urgent.
We have all been there. Overwhelmed by the tyranny of the urgent. By the weight of what is pressing. We cannot do what we want to do because we must do what we have to do. It’s enough to make you question whether or not you have free will. After all, if you simply “go with the flow”, and the flow is a roaring river of whitewater rapids carrying you unwillingly downstream, then free will takes a back seat to determinism.
If we have free will, why do we so quickly and easily choose to surrender it? Can we ever escape these incessant rapids, make it to peaceful shores, and set our feet on terra firma?
We can. But free will is not, as we so often think, an isolated exertion of psychic forces to empower a series of selfish choices. No, free will originates in the soul and exists as an ongoing call to choose that which sets us free to divine being.
Free will is a function of the spirit, and as such can only be pursued in the spirit. And because it originates from the divine God of the Universe, we can only exercise free will when our spirit is in communion with His. It is his will, not ours, that sets us free.
Anything else is indentured servitude to the ego disguising itself as free will.
Today, we will take a closer look at how to rejuvenate the powers of free will in order to escape the tyranny of the urgent.
Consider this your free will call.
Source Scripture
Pursuing Free Will: Matthew 4:23-25; Mark 1:35-39; Luke 4:42-44
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