The Divine Path of Desire

Awestruck

Desire is a divine gift that stirs the soul, prompting us to pursue its fulfillment. Yet we often corrupt divine desire by conflation and control.

We conflate love with lust, which drives us to see the other as a utilitarian object to fulfill lustful desire rather than a divine being with which to seek meaningful presence. We conflate joy with happiness, and pursue fleeting pleasures. We conflate peace with the absence of annoyance and play never ending whack-a-mole with the slightest intrusion.

Conflation leads to control. Lust requires control, reducing sex to on-demand video, one-night stands, rape, pedophilia, and worse. Happiness demands that we control the trinkets kept within our reach so that we may summon them at will. Removing annoyances instead of seeking shalom forces us to use force to silence unwanted voices.

To pursue desire by conflation, control, or the commingled concoction of both inevitably leads to anxiety, frustration, and the worship of money as the wellspring of control.

We suffer anxiety over our limited control and abilities to obtain what we want. Frustration strikes when we fail, but ultimately even when we supposedly succeed as our conflated counterparts don’t culminate in contentment. And the love of money is inescapable. Money is control, mathematically summoned at will.

The path of conflation and control to fulfill desire will never bring satisfaction - it is a dead-end road that, despite our best efforts, cannot be turned into a luxurious culdesac of consummation.

The divine path of desire is paved with trust in the Divine God of the Universe who created our desires and designed us to seek Him for their fulfillment. Trust removes the need for control and eliminates the habit of conflation, leaving us in a state of blissful shalom.

This underlying theme pervades our last six episodes, though without in-depth contemplation we will engage today. Today, we see the beauty of Jesus’ words through a review of of the thread that weaves through his last six otherwise isolated proverbs in his Sermon on the Mount.

Today, we see the beauty of trust as the path to fulfilling our desires.

Source Scripture

Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13-15 Matthew 6:25-34; Luke 12:22-32 Matthew 7:1-5; Luke 6:37-42 Matthew 7:6 Matthew 7:7-11; Luke 11:9-13 Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31

Connect

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Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist (Apple I Spotify)