Desires are interesting. They can be both for and not for something. They can be secret and unknown. They can be over-bearing. They can be the only thing on our mind. They can be the filter by which we see everything else. They can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do. They can keep us from doing things we would normally do. But where do our desires come from? And why are they so hard to shake?

Recently, I’ve come face to face with a question that has got me re-thinking a lot of how I live my life.

Do you really desire the things you say you desire?

I found that I often speak in one way, like, “My desire is to do this thing,” but what my actions said was, “I actually want that other thing.” My life was strung between these two poles in an unbreakable tension. And what I came to see is that it wasn’t that one desire was stronger than the other. It’s that one wasn’t there at all and the desire that kept controlling was actually on both sides of the things I torn between. Let me explain.

I want to serve God and love God. Or so I would say. But what I came to see pouring out of my core was this desire to look like I love God without loving God in the ways I know I love other things. I didn’t think He would show up. I thought it was easier to play along, speak the language, or rack my brain for any insight or “word” that I could label as God-given and fling it out there just to fit in. And not just fit in, but stand out among those whom I was trying to fit in with.

I heard someone say once that they thought it was funny that those who want to stand out from the crowd are often those who look like everyone else.

Why?

Because everyone else in the world wants to stand out from the crowd as well.

What would really make you stand out from the crowd?

Not caring whether you look like the crowd or whether you stand out from the crowd.

I think of Jesus here. Jesus embodied this humility that made Him not desire to stand out from the crowd and yet He was the only one worthy of being set apart from the crowd. His ability to give up His own worship gave Him the right to be worshipped above all.

So I’m learning to desire the right things. I think I’ll be learning this my whole life. There is something inside me that sees God and says that He isn’t worthy of it all because I still think I’m worthy of it all. Only God can fit a camel through the eye of a needle and only God can change the desires of a man stuck thinking that he is the end to his own life.