Managing Our Desires

Noticing that tree there in the Garden, she observed the fruit sprouting from it certainly did look good enough to eat. Being so pleasing to her eyes, she plucked a sample from the tree and bit into it.

“Hmm, it is good and juicy,” she beamed. She then gave it to the one who was with her; that one with her ate it too.

All of a sudden where once there was no shame, now they were both humiliated. The couples' design was once a beautiful thing, as their Maker remarked, “Behold, it is all excellent in every way.” Now that thing of beauty had turned into something of ugliness, because of that pair together partaking of their desires, despite their Maker’s warning that they should not do so.

They “sinned.” They desired to have something though told it was wrong for them to have; they took it anyway.

Just as a child hides from his/her parents when s/he does wrong, that pair also had disappeared from their Maker, shamed in yielding to their desires at the deceptive snare of the evil one. Their Maker found them out anyway; nothing and no one can hide from Him.

He knew when they did wrong, and it so grieved Him. And yet He had to punish them. As a parent may take away their child’s favorite toy in punishment, so God takes away that which He gave them to enjoy. Just as a parent disciplines his/her child, so God’s discipline did not come out of hatred, but out of love.

God so demonstrated His love for that first couple way back then, long, long ago by providing a covering for their nakedness – so much better than what they could ever afford for themselves (see Genesis 3:7, 21).

Since then, we today now know good and evil; the whole world now suffers for what they have done then in yielding to their desires.

Should we desire for anything less than God’s love, His care for us? He is eternal; He promises to supply all our needs, much better than what we can do for ourselves. Why then should we desire the things of this world – the merely temporal?

“Do not love this world,” God says, “or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, [God’s] love is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and his pride in possessions – comes not from [God] but from the world” (see 1 John 2:15-17.)

The psalmist has written, “As I delight myself in You LORD, You will give me the desires of my heart” (Psalm 37:4).

May my delight be first in the LORD, that my desires may be held captive to His will.