Desire
In 2008 I began writing No Mercy, my novel about the battle between flesh and spirit. The first draft I wrote using a pseudonym because I was afraid of my topic—afraid of how my writing of the topic would be received, and afraid that if reader-response was negative, my reputation would suffer irreparably.
Once I quashed my fears, and relinquished claim to reputation, I put my name on the book. No Mercy was published in 2009 and has done well in the marketplace.
I had spoken and written about the battle between flesh and spirit for years, but I never felt the freedom to accurately portray the true nature of the battle. Nice audiences at churches and conference centers aren’t tolerant of brawls and knife fights, which is more akin to what the flesh warring against the Spirit is than the uniform, organized discipline implied by regulated battle.
A novel can be a powerful, literary tool. As is said, a picture is worth a thousand words.
No Mercy explores several contrasts as the main character, Hank Henderson, makes his way through the pages of his story: mercy vs. no mercy; flesh vs. spirit; significance vs. loss; want vs. desire.
God fulfilling your heart’s desires.
Hank knows what he wants. But the question is: Will he realize that his heart’s desire is the more fulfilling and powerful aspect of him, the High King’s son?
The flesh wants. The spirit desires.
Want and desire are opposed. As a result, these are at enmity against each other.
And this brings us to the next line in our Psalm: “Delight yourself in the Lord; / And He will give you the desires of your heart” (37:4). Delighting in your heavenly Father creates delight in Him. This, in turn, results in God fulfilling your heart’s desires.
There is teaching in the Christian community that with enough faith, you can have what you want. Healing? Money? A new house, a better car? A spouse? Name it! Believe God, and by faith, your wants will be yours because faith moves God. In fact, some say faith obligates God to supply whatever you want, name, and claim.
What exactly does your heart desire?
For a number of years, Lifetime’s offices were on the same floor with one of these name-it-and-claim-it preachers. The guy parked his Ferrari underneath my office window. His custom-made suits were impressive, and in the winter, his wife’s full-length Sable coat was striking under her blond waves cascading over the dark fur.
There was a day when UPS left one of Lifetime’s deliveries at this minister’s office, so I went down the hall to pick it up. Most of the staff were gone to some event, so the receptionist—also the main guy’s mother—gave me a tour of their offices.
The minister had a richly-appointed office that was 30’ X 60.’ Showcased on an antique table were two expensive model airplanes. I asked his mother about their significance. With enthusiasm, she asked, “Well, which one is the plane and which one is the jet?”
I pointed, “This one with the propellers is the airplane. That one is the jet.”
“Okay, okay.” Pointing to the prop plane, “This is the one he’s got.” Then pointing to the jet, “And this is the one he wants and is believing God for.”
Your emotional disposition is a heart for God.
What do you want?
What do you desire?
These are not the same questions. God makes no promises regarding what you want, but delighting yourself in Him triggers fulfillment of your heart’s desires as our Psalm states.
So, what exactly does your heart desire?
First though, what is your heart and what’s the condition of your heart?
If we define you as composed of body, soul, and spirit, and we further define your soul as composed of mind, will, and emotion, then you are comprised of six parts, each of which has a specific definition of heart.
Body: Inside your chest there is a beating organ that pumps blood called, your heart.
Soul: Heart and soul, the saying goes. The horse that won the Triple Crown, Secretariat, was said to possess “great heart” and this accounted for him winning the crown. When the US hockey team defeated Russia to win gold in 1980—the Miracle on Ice—they did so because of heart. We characterize mental heart as tenacity, focus. Our willful heart is described as determined, resolute. The emotional heart exudes passion, dedication, enthusiasm.
Spirit: Jesus lives in your spiritual heart. Your heart and the heart of God are bonded, made one, and can never be separated. Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied that through salvation, God would remove your darkened, hard heart and give you a new heart that is soft and pliable toward Him.
When you became a Christian, you moved from death to life. From spiritually distant, you became spiritually close. Your spirit and the Holy Spirit became one. In place of your darkened mind, you received the mind of Christ. Your rebellious self-will became malleable, respectful, and “obedient from the heart” Romans says. Your emotional disposition is said to be a heart for God, a deep desire to please Him.
God’s desires and your heart’s desires are shared properties between the two of you.
Twice, the Book of Hebrews quotes from Jeremiah stating that God will put His laws into your mind as a Believer and write them on your heart. The context infers that in so doing, God and His people experience a deep connection, a shared understanding of values, and a relational bond that is so close as to be inseparable.
Assembling these biblical truths: As a Believer, you have a new heart that is tender toward God. It’s vibrant, alive, full of the Spirit, warm, and it beats in sync to the rhythms of God’s heart. Stepping within your spiritual heart, the walls are inscribed with God’s values—all those things God holds precious and important.
God has recorded on the walls of your heart everything timeless, essential, important, and indicative of His hopes, dreams, and convictions. In giving you a new heart, God instilled the capacity to bond with Him, share with Him, and live with Him truly, heart to heart.
His inscriptions are trusts between you and Him.
Yeats said, “Tread softly, for you tread upon my dreams.” Handle carefully your heart because it is the repository of God’s dreams. “Watch over your heart with all diligence,” Proverbs says. “For from it flow the springs of life” (4:23). God’s desires and your heart’s desires are shared properties between the two of you.
When Paul said his determined purpose is to “…know Him [Christ Jesus], and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings…” he wasn’t saying that he desired to be informed on these matters. Rather, he was saying he desired to know what Jesus was thinking, conceiving, dreaming, pondering, and reflecting upon as He entered into suffering.
Now take note of yourself. I’m betting that something tangible is stirring in your chest as you’re contemplating your heart’s desires. Something confirmed, “Yes,” as you read. There was a “Me too” that could be described as passion, or agreement, or resonance—or as desire. However this awareness occurs in you, this is the Spirit of God speaking to you in concert with your heart’s desire.
You desire what God desires. This collegiality, synchronicity, compatibility is your heart and God’s heart working in harmony, dancing in step, communicating shared desire.
What is your heart’s desire?
To know God, yes. But that is an abstraction.
In concrete terms, your heart’s desire is to walk with God with sufficient awareness that you understand what He’s thinking, feeling, dreaming, noticing, enjoying, and envisioning. You desire not so much to know what God knows, but to understand why what He knows matters to Him.
Jeremiah quotes God: “‘Let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things’” (9:23-24). God is saying that if you know and understand how He thinks, feels, behaves, and values faithfulness, believing what is right, and doing what is right then you can delight in saying you know and understand Him because these are the things that delight Him.
Notice that delight and desire pair in Jeremiah similarly to Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord; / And He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Heart’s desire: To know and understand your heavenly Father. To consider all that He has inscribed on the walls of your heart, knowing that His inscriptions are trusts between you and Him, declarations of valued importance, treasures shared only within the confines of your connection, intimacies so profound they may only be whispered in the deepest reservoirs of heart’s desire.
Delight in the Lord. As you do, He is delighted. Delight in the Lord, not only with faithful belief, but with determined trust when surrounded by wickedness. Delight in Him. He delights in you. And there, in the midst of trust, you will recognize and realize the desires of your heart—which are His desires as well.
It’s quite the invitation to dance with God. Your heart’s desire is to step—and our passage tells you how: “Commit your way to the Lord, / Trust also in Him, and He will do it” (v. 5).