As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. Psalm 42:1
“Satan’s cause is never more in danger than when a human being no longer desiring, but still intending to do God’s will, looks around upon a world from which every trace of God seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken, yet still obeys.”
C.S. Lewis “The Screwtape Letters”
"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
· CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory
“The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with god, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last. . . . Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache”
· CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory
looking at the list, you can see that these motivators relate to different stages and aspects of the spiritual journey, and that some may seem to be more accessible than others. For instance, we may be able to identify more with number 3 than with number 7. But remember that they are all facets of the same gem, since they are integrated in the character and promises of the living God. In a sense, they are components of a single passion—a concern for one thing above all else, the one thing most needed (Luke 10:41-42). When we are not propelled and impelled by one ultimate attraction, we are pulled by multiple desires. The worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things (Mark 4:19) can choke the word in our lives and prevent us from bearing lasting fruit. When we turn from the lures of the world to the Person of Christ, we discover “the magnet that draws, the anchor that steadies, the fortress that defends, the light that illumines, the treasure that enriches, the law that commands and the power that enables”
Alexander Maclaren
O God, I have tasted Thy goodness,
and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.
I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace.
I am ashamed of my lack of desire.
O God, the Triune God,
I want to want Thee;
I long to be filled with longing;
thirst to be made more thirsty still.
Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed.
Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.
Say to my soul, `Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.'
Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland
where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' name, Amen.
(AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God)
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