When we think of our unfulfilled desires, what comes to mind, things sweet and wonderful, or dark and devious?
What do we want that we can’t get our hands around? The bigger question might be whether we need to get our hands around it.
In Who Needs God, Harold Kushner tells the story of the African Sky Maiden who is captured. When she agrees to marry a man who falls in love with her, she brings a box with her on the condition he never opens the box.
After only a short time, his unfulfilled desire becomes to know the contents of the box. He opens it to find it empty. The Sky Maiden sorrowfully explains to him that it contains sky, and she cannot love someone who considers her most precious possession to be nothing.
Fulfilling his desire lost the man the most wonderful thing he possessed, the Sky Maiden.
We can find examples of fulfilled desires and their results scattered throughout the Bible. Let’s look at five of them.
1 Timothy 2:14 begins the story of humanity.
“And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”
Temptations are all around us, and they come in more forms than we can imagine. Eve stepped past God’s instruction, and her act haunts us still today.
2 Timothy 4:10 gives an account of one to whom the world had greater pull than did the works of the cross.
“For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.”
Nothing much is known of Crescens, but Demas, a faithful companion of Paul, searched for security in the face of impending imprisonment. He abandoned a friend to achieve his desires.
Colossians 4:13 speaks about the zeal of Epaphras.
“For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis.”
Epaphras desired the furtherance of the kingdom of God, and he was able to think of little else. HIs focus was on the cross, and the world was changed around him.
2 Corinthians 11:2 speaks of Paul’s desire for others to be more like Christ.
“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.”
Paul set a higher example before the church at Corinth, even as he worried they would be led astray by men with false teachings. Paul’s fulfilled desire was that they continue in the truth of the Christ.
Revelation 19:9 speaks to God’s desire to be united with his children:
“And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the true words of God.’ ”
When we choose to walk with the Son, we will one day dine with the Father. We will have every desire fulfilled in the presence of our King.
What we desire determines who we eventually become. Let’s desire God so we can become like him.
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