Luther’s Joy
Everyone, desires something. Humans spend most of their life talking about their desires, finding ways to pursue them, and experience them. Desire is the very catalyst for motion, the driving force of life and living. Desires govern our decisions, our decisions govern our destiny.
What I really want to know is not what my desires are. I spend enough time admiring the prospect of one day obtaining them, as do others. Instead, what tickles the curiosity is more, why I desire, what I desire. Why do I want the things I want? Because. Because, why? And as much as the “why?” question can, asked too repeatedly, become increasingly uncomfortable, it may be necessary for us to go down that path for our self-edification.
Quite frequently, when dialoging with an eclectic group of friends, classmates, co-workers, and even family, I often wonder why people want the things they do. Some desires seem far-fetched, some seem intriguing, some seem laudable, others seem positively ridiculous and shallow. How one obtains his or her desires, is not as informative as why he or she possessed them in the first place. What people want (or say they want), reveal a lot about them.
But oftentimes, we can’t help our desires. In fact, some of us may not even like our desires. Many of our desires are influenced by other peoples’ desires. Many of us don’t really desire what we desire. Then can we choose to desire the right desires? What are the “right” desires?
People know how to get what they want. How-to books are everywhere. But is it possible to desire something that is purely, absolutely, genuinely desirable? Because once we find it, and unequivocally desire it, we can be assured it is ours.
“Is it true that you can live life doing as you please?” someone once asked Martin Luther. “Indeed!” exclaimed Luther, “Now, what pleases you?”
More revealing than what what one does, or does not, is what one is pleased to do. What you do now, does it please you to do so?
The few sentences of the verbal exchange above between Luther and that someone is rich with meaning. Some of us live and do according to what pleases us. Some of us live and do according to what does not please us, but may not find the experience to be particularly pleasing.
More meaningful is to live and do according to what pleases someone else, and to find pleasure in doing so. Sure, go ahead, do what you do. But does it please you, or does it please another? And if it pleases another, does it please you that it pleases another?
Romans 8:5-8; 12-14 says: Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.