Duty and Desire

I've been reading a book called "The Journey of Desire" (By John Eldridge) off and on for about the last year or so. It's a good book. In this book, John Eldridge talks about how much Desire should have a place in our lives as humans, relational beings, and as Followers of Christ. He quotes Augustine, and this pretty much sums up the gist of what I am trying to say, and what I struggle with: "Give me a man in love: he knows what I mean. Give me one who yearns, give me one who is hungry; give me one who is far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal country. Give me that sort of man: he knows what I mean. But if I speak to a cold man, he just does not know what I am talking about." 

Because I struggle so much with the pendulum of Duty and Desire. I do a lot of things that I don't want to; I also don't do a lot of things that I don't want to. But do I do a lot of things that I want to? Not really. I'm not talking about things like staying up 'til 1 in the morning, watching episodes of Monk, or eating a whole container of ice cream. Those are indulgences, fleeting desires of the earthly body. I'm talking about the things you're passionate about, that your heart quickens just thinking about; the way you feel when your Love is close by. That kind of desire. You know, I don't think many of us do too many things that we really, truly, want. Why? Because. We've been disappointed in the past; we've been so deeply hurt that months, or even years later, there's a gnawing, poisonous hole still eating outwards into our souls. And believe me (though you certainly won't have to take my word for it), this hole will grab your attention, sooner or later. It's not something you can ignore forever; either you ossify into a man of stone, oozing poison onto all around you, or you collapse into a shivering, slobbering mass of pain. And there's not much I, or anyone, can do about it. Like Johnny Cash so aptly says, "I will make you hurt." We all make each other hurt. We all disappoint each other. There's nothing we can do about it, except hide in our soul-caves, flinching at the thought of chasing after real desires, not those silly things that we say we want. Because I'm afraid that I won't be able to catch that desire; or worse still, it won't be what I thought it was. But that's not the end, is it? "It can't be, it can't be." Because there is one who can heal our gaping holes, ease our woeful disappointments, and-- if we let Him-- breath life back into the embers of Desire. Yeap, I'm talking about Jesus. God. Yahweh. But it takes something. God doesn't take a scrubber to your soul, and scourge all the dirt spots off, and return it to you, shiny and squeaky clean. He wants you to give your soul to him, your heart, your mind-- piece by piece. Do you trust Him to do that? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. The hardest part is trusting Him, trusting Him to not make mincemeat of your desires-- but realizing that God himself gave you these passions, and He created you to pursue them. I pray that you trust Him enough to give him your desires, and when He gives you the go ahead, to pursue them with all you're worth. Because any desire is an empty one if it isn't superseded by the desire to know, and be known, by the God of the universe, by the Maker of our hearts.