Desire Re-Configured

 Sometimes I'm amazed at how I see myself in those twelve disciples of Jesus: the same failures, faults, and misguided ambitions...the same want to do right but inability to follow through. How patient the Master was with them - and how much so with me, too! 

The Bible reading at church this Sunday morning, for as many times as I've read it, seems to have a different meaning as I follow along with the message. It's from Mark 10 where James and John come to their Rabbi with a personal request. When Christ establishes His never-ending kingdom (which, in their minds, meant overthrow of the Romans), they desire to each get the top two places of honor sitting on either side of Him in eternal glory. Kind of a bold request! Even the other disciples were stunned at their brashness. 

The fact that their request was selfish and misguided isn't my point here but rather, how they asked it. Verse 35: "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 

How many times have I approached the King of the Universe this way, as if God is my genie in a bottle and able to produce whatever results I bid Him to with a wave of my magic human wand! How many times have I gone to God and said, Here's the outcome I want to have; do it for me." And, like with His followers of old, He has patiently sat there and listened to my ignorant wishes.

I wonder how often we disappoint ourselves in the life of faith simply because we go to God with self-centered agendas....with silly ambitions made up of our own wants and expect Him to just go ahead and make it happen. "We want You to do whatever we ask of you." How arrogant can we be?! How turned inward!

I think of seasons in my past where I came to God with already-thought-through plans and told Him I wanted certain results. Oh yes, I prayed for "Thy will be done" but really, in my heart, it was all about my will be done. Do as I ask, and I'll thank You. Make what I want happen, and I'll love and bless you. And I'll hold You to it because You'd never deny me something that's important to me! 

Perhaps what startles me the most about Jesus's response to His two proud followers - and what stuns me even today - is that He still listened. Even when their wish was so off-the-mark it wasn't even reasonable. But He went ahead and let them talk. "What do you want me to do for you?" He who knew all things and knew their hearts before they even asked still allowed them to voice their wish out-loud. It was only after they had laid out their plan that He informed them it wasn't an outcome He could grant. And from there, He gently led them down the road of heart-change and showed them a bigger lesson they needed to learn. He knew that what they must have wasn't a fulfilled desire but a transformed attitude. 

Maybe in those times when it seems like God is being a disappointment, a joy-kill Who is out to take more than He gives, to put us through miserable situations that go against all we want or think seems appropriate... maybe then He's after the same thing He was when the disciples asked amiss. He wanted to alter their perspective more than He was willing to change their circumstances. And He went ahead and humbled their negative ambition in order to show them the bigger picture. He didn't give them what they wanted because it wasn't best. Yet He still graciously let them say it anyway... even when He knew it wasn't something He was going to do. 

Here, in the midst of my demanding and my commanding, God sits quietly, letting me say all the thoughts out-loud and voice the things in my soul, however impractical. And He loves me anyway and invites me to express and explain myself, even though He intends to give me something better than what I've asked for in the first place. 

I do not know, however much I pretend to, what is best for me. And that is why I constantly need, just like the disciples, to have my desires reconfigured. To have my ambitions checked at the door and evaluated for any hypocrisy or selfish motive. Because I'm prone to choose my own way that seeks my glorification, my comfort, my fulfillment and not the way that leads to the holy. I'm more apt to take the high road of ease instead of entering the depths of pain where character is formed. 

As Jesus went on to explain to those men, the lower way is the better way. The way of drinking the bitter cup is the way of transformation. Of accepting what you do not want in favor of what you most need. For even He Himself entered earth to serve and give His purest life a ransom for many. All of us follow in His footsteps, and how can we expect to become more like Him if we are not willing to let go of what we desperately desire so that our hands can be emptied and filled instead with more of Him? 

God, forgive me for all the times I've told You what I wanted and forgot to ask what You wanted instead. For all the moments when I said, "do for me whatever I ask" rather than laying my hopes, dreams, and wants at Your feet and leaving them there. Thank You for patiently hearing me out even though You knew my requests were foolish and self-conceited. And thank you, too, for not saying yes to what I desired because You loved me enough to give me better.