Contemplating Innate Desire

Over the last couple of months, I've progressively been meditating on calling, passion, renewal, and obedience. All of which are very much related. I am sure much of my future writing will recall these themes. For the moment, however, allow me to briefly share some thoughts to which I have been ruminating.

Not too long ago at Church of the Incarnation, Father Philputt eloquently spoke about the shift in thinking from our early Christian brethren to those within the modern and contemporary Church. The basic thesis is that the historic Church, I am supposing apostolic through premodern, would largely gather together in prayer and fasting, seeking guidance upon which they would respond in obedience. This obedient response would often necessitate the crucifying of one's own individual wants for the corporate good of the Church and glorification of the Eternal One. Relatively recently in the Christian era, however, followers of Christ have turned this process over on its head. Coming to steam during current times, focus has progressively been put on recognizing one's own innate desire and then praying for God's utilization of it for His glory, realized of course through the ultimate success of personal passion and ambition of self. In both events, one is sought to compromise and limit oneself to the other.
Having said that, let's transition slightly to the idea of perversion. May we begin with a definition:

perversion |pərˈvər zh ən|
noun

the alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended

To make something perverse, therefore, is to twist something that was true, or good. Sex. Influence. Money. Talent. All of these things are gifts from God that are all too readily turned inward by the possessor (a more holy context would label as steward) toward gratification of the individual self. Such an action moves even beyond anthropocentrism to egocentrism.

This leads me to reflect upon the object of my heart. To me, I have two options: Christ or myself. I disbelieve it to be anything but the two, for truly looking towards the good of others, outside myself, is only accomplished through the love of Christ. Loving God and our neighbor are strongly related, and neither truly exists without the other. If my passions are directed for the self prescribed good of my own person, then I have perverted what God has given me to be used for His glory. Renewal must be found. If however, my passions are submitted to God, for Him to use mightily or sparingly (of which I must yield and be content with), then I walk in obedience to Him. There, I find fulfillment of my calling.

Perhaps to say it another way, my calling is not to be famous and applauded in this world for reaching a level of success in what I am necessarily inwardly passionate about. My calling is to be obedient to God and faithful to what He commands of me. At times that may call for something of which I happen to desire strongly. Other moments, it might very much be the opposite. Still, it is in faith that I trust God's leading of me and that joy comes from knowing Him. It is in using the innate desires of my heart to His glory that I testify His creative provision implanted within me at my creation. Likewise, it is in the denying of those desires also for His glory that I confess His sufficiency imparted to me through Christ.

I believe Bishop N.T. Wright speaks on these ideas in his popular work Simply Christian. Here he begins with the related topic of sexual ethics.

Christian sexual ethics, in other words, isn't simply a collection of old rules which we are now free to set aside because we know better (the danger with [ancient Epicureanism and more modern Deism]). Nor can we appeal against the New Testament by saying that whatever desires we find inside our deepest selves must be God-given (the natural assumption with [pantheism]). Jesus was quite clear about that. Yes, God knows our deepest desires; but the famous old prayer which (tremblingly) acknowledges that fact doesn't go on to imply that this means they are therefore to be fulfilled and carries out as they stand, but rather that they need cleansing and healing.

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Another famous old prayer puts it even more sharply:

Almighty God, who alone can bring order to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity: Give your people grace so to love what you command and to desire what you promise that, among the many changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; though Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We have lived for too long in a world, and tragically even in a church, where this prayer has become reversed: where the wills and affections of human beings are regarded as sacrosanct as they stand, where God is required to command what we already love and to promise what we already desire. The implicit religion of many people today is simply to discover who they really are an then try to live it out - which is, as many have discovered a recipe for chaotic, disjointed, and dysfunctional humanness. The logic of cross and resurrection, of the new creation which gives shape to all truly Christian living, points in a different direction. And on of the central names for that direction is joy: the joy of relationships healed as well as enhanced, the joy of belonging to a new creation, of finding not what we already had but what God was longing to give us. At the heart of the Christian ethic is humility; at the heart of its parodies, pride. Different roads with different destinations, and the destinations color the character of those who travel by them.