What do you want?

"How lovely is your dwelling place O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God" (Psalm 84:1-2). Jesus once asked the question, "What do you want?" (Luke 18:45 TLB) Some of you may be looking in the refrigeration to get some breakfast. I'm not interested in what you want for breakfast. When we ask this question, we generally are not interested in trivial things. We desire a deep, profound answer. Sometimes we ask it differently, "What you want written on your tombstone?" or "What you want people to say about you at your funeral?" or "What legacy do you want to leave behind?" I get irritated with stories in which a character immediately knows the answer to such a question. Most people cannot answer it quickly. Our answer will differ depending on the day and the things happening around us. I'm not always sure if there is one thing that I really want. But knowing what we want is important. Years ago, when it was still okay to say such things, G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God." The only difference between that person and the one who kneels to receive the Lord's Supper is that the former is looking for satisfaction in the wrong place. This person does not know that it is God who is being sought for. It's the same with all our appetites and longings: a bigger house; a faster car; better make-up; successful children; political positions. We want many things. But getting these things doesn't satisfy. In fact, they tend to kill us. We humans have an infernal habit of mistaking the things God gives for the God who gives them. We tend to worship the things God gives, rather than God himself. As Paul once wrote, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised! Amen" (Romans 1:25). God made everything for His glory, to show off His greatness. The things He created all point back to Him. They remind us that He is our true home, our destination. Sin makes creatures our home rather than God to whom they point. Worshipping God's creation will be our death. The psalmist knew this. He was away from Jerusalem and longed to be home. Not because he worshipped that city but because in Jerusalem was God's temple, God's presence on earth. That is where he encountered God. That was joy. This is even truer for us, followers of Jesus. We are his temple. God is right here, where we are. But do we want him? Is he our joy? In the long road through the wilderness of our lives, we can take either of two roads. On the one road, we focus on all the things that we can't enjoy right now. We can feed our longing for them. The other road is the one the psalmist took. Rather, than feeding his longings for stuff, he fed his longing for God. We can take that road too. We can ask the Spirit to sift our desires so that increasingly we long for God. Then, when someone asks us that irritating question, "What do you want out of life?" we know our answer. Let us pray that He will always be our joy and that we will always sing His praises and not the praises of the things He made. As you journey on, go with the blessing of God: May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May your day end with rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you. May you rest in his provision as he brings night, and then new dawn.