Desire

What a great hobby. With limitless entry points into an endless array of cars, and activities utilizing those cars, a person’s involvement in this hobby can be determined by their desire. Consider the desires: installing a Honda B18C1 VTEC engine in a classic Mini, dominating F Stock Prepared at the local autocross, dominating F1, writing the perfect book about the history of the AMC Spirit… 

With all this desire floating around, cars have tripped up plenty of Christ-followers who crave creation more than the Creator. They become idols very quickly. “What pagans make with wood we make in our mind,” Martin Luther once said about idolatry. As car folks, we do both. We make idols out of steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, and yes, wood. And when we so severely want what we don’t have, we practice idolatry within the mind. 

But isn’t God supposed to give us what we ask for? The Bible says “ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you,” (Luke 11:9) and “you do not have, because you do not ask God” (James 4:2). If you’ve prayed every night for a 1967 Mustang fastback and not a single one has appeared in your driveway by morning, or healing from a disease and the disease remains, it’s easy to think that God doesn’t answer prayer. Or He does, but maybe He doesn’t like you. 

Neither of these are true.

So, to borrow a popular mental health treatment exercise, let’s trace it back. Focus on your car-related desire (this is probably extremely easy). Say, owning a 1967 Ford Mustang fastback with a 289 V8 and black paint a mile deep. What part of that fantasy is so appealing to you? When you explore that, and see what is at its root, your deepest desires are revealed. For example:

• I can’t wait to show up to my high school reunion with it.

  • Acceptance of other people is what I desire.

    • Acceptance is what I desire.

• It will hold its value better than other cars, or other investments.

  • Financial security is what I desire.

    • Security is what I desire.

• That feeling of stomping on the loud pedal and hearing it roar.

  • Joy from noise and speed is what I desire.

    • Joy is what I desire.

When we ask for acceptance, security, and joy, God will grant it. He could use any object, relationship, or experience to deliver these virtues to you. He might even use a 1967 Mustang. Yet if you’re serious about acceptance, security, and joy, and understanding your brain – from a mental health perspective – and deepening your faith in God, pray fervently for God Himself to be the source of that acceptance, security, and joy. He made us. He wired us to have desires, and He wants a pursuit of Him and unity with His people to be the satisfaction of those desires. That’s why idolatry is so offensive to him: it opposes the purpose of our existence, and, existentially, the purpose of Creation itself.

No human lives who doesn’t desire. Any action, from brushing your teeth to talking to a friend to wrenching on your AMC Spirit satisfies some basal desire. In fact, Ecclesiastes describes the death of a person as when “desire is no longer stirred.” We will never overcome desire, so we better figure out how to live with it. It’s not about suppressing our desire, but redirecting it.

Knowing this, verses like “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart,” (Psalm 37:4) make more sense. Until we understand this, we’ll continue to despair over the lack of things that God doesn’t give. The Bible is full of misplaced desire leading to a person’s ruin. As long as we are more concerned with a trinket within creation than the divinity of the Creator, we will be miserable. 

God wove desire into our hearts. Even this is an expression of the Creator. He wants to give us acceptance, peace, joy, and a million other things. Most importantly, God desires our rejection of desires that don’t lead to Him. Through prayer, we can surrender those broken desires and redirect our desires to God. Only then are our hearts in a good place to ask for that 1967 Mustang (or perhaps a less expensive car you desire), or healing from a disease. And God, who cares deeply about the desires of your heart, listens and will answer.