Your Heart's Desire

1 Kings 3:5-14
John 8:12-19

What if an angel of God came to you with the gift of whatever your heart desires. What would you choose? Would you pray to have healthy, well-adjusted, successful children? Would you want your business known far and wide? Would you want to sit with intellectuals and hold you own? Would you want to be of service to mankind, making a difference in the world? Would you want enough money to never have to worry about where the next paycheck was coming from? Would you want to grow old with beauty and dignity keeping your wits about you until the end? What is it in the deepest depths of yourself that you really desire? Not what you think you should ask for, but what you really, deeply desire?

Solomon was approached in a dream by an angel who asked this very thing. Solomon asks for a discerning heart—a heart that would be able to dispense justice wisely and that would rule the kingdom of Israel after the manner of his father, David. God was pleased with this request and gave him the gift of wisdom and everything else a man could want. Unfortunately in his real life Solomon’s wisdom did not extend to the choices he made. His excesses ruined him!

Paul’s deepest desire was to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. His passion was to discern the Spirit of God working in his life and mission. He taught others to “live in Christ” regardless of the cost to his own body.

Jesus said that his own ability to discern and judge was perfect because he stood with the Father. “My Father and I are one.”

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, tells us that we are to discern the person that God has designed us to be and remove all the impediments to the functioning of that person. God intends for us to be like Jesus. We are to discern how that looks in the day to day experience of life. Certainly a good thing to desire.

I sometimes think that we desire too little rather than too much. We often desire things that are ultimately bad for us. We desire things that when granted leave us wanting something more, or different. Even the really “good” things that we desire often seem short-lived and incomplete somehow. If God were to ask me the same question he asked Solomon, would I know what to ask for? St. Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. And that brings us back to Jesus and Paul. The greatest desire, the desire with the greatest possibility of fulfillment and satisfaction is to know Christ and through him to know the Father at a deep and unifying level. Anything else that I might desire and ask for is bound to leave me wanting. Only God can fill all the empty places and longings. Only he is sufficient in a world that hinges on insanity. Only he can hold everything together and give it meaning and purpose.

I have no trouble pursuing my desires for things and causes. It’s easy to set goals and take steps to reach them. But to seek God, to know God, to align my desires with his desires for me, requires me to have an intentional spiritual life. If I am serious, I need to set aside time for prayer and contemplation. I need to study the Word to discover how God interacts with his people. I need to grow in my love and knowledge of his Son, Jesus. I need to become aware of my life (its actions and motivations) and to be willing to grow and change. Too often, this deepest desire gets blocked by all my other competing desires. Like Solomon I become consumed with an excess of things and lose sight of the Real Thing. I pray that in this New Year I will pursue my deepest desire in Christ and know him and the power of his resurrection. Nothing else will satisfy!