I am thrilled to begin this new year (and new decade) with a blog post from friends Beth and Dave Booram. You are going to love knowing these two! Beth and Dave are authors, spiritual directors, speakers, and directors of Fall Creek Abbey in Indianapolis. This reflection is adapted from their new book, When Faith Becomes Sight, which I highly recommend for your 2020 reading list. Learn more (and maybe even schedule your own personal retreat) at www.fallcreekabbey.org.
There’s no better time to settle in and listen to the desires of our hearts as we form vision for 2020 and beyond. Take a few moments of quiet to consider the desires of your heart again.
Befriending Desire from Beth and David Booram
For about fifteen years Beth and I lived in a neighborhood built around a golf course. We didn’t move there because of our love of the game, but we did appreciate the green space. In fact, each year as winter began to settle in, we looked forward to reclaiming the fairways for brisk and bone-chilling walks. The outing I recall most vividly was in January: I was alone, well-bundled and walking in the dark. The path was lit only by an icy blue moon. I was currently out of work and disillusioned with my previous three-decade career in ministry. Having just resigned from a pastoral role, a decision I did not enter into lightly, I now felt lost; two kids in college, two others in high school, with no plan B.
That night as I walked along the shadowed paths, I felt particularly alone. To make matters more disconcerting, I had been experiencing God as particularly quiet, silent even. It made no sense to me. Here I was at a crossroad and in desperate need for God to speak up and speak clearly, yet instead I heard nothing. I kept putting one heavy foot in front of the other, all the while complaining to God in frustration that his lack of speaking into my questions was confusing and disheartening. As I acclimated to the dark and the cold, my heart began to feel a bit less burdened, and I also began to detect a faint, glowing warmth inside me. When I say glow, it was more like a stirring of a subtle yet vibrant desire that ascended from my midsection, up into my head, and finally into my awareness. In my mind’s eye I began to see the shape of some emerging core desires. They were consonant with older desires, but they were resurfacing as current wants and needs in this new context in which I found myself.
As these thoughts began to take on more substance, I sensed God speaking quietly to my spirit. What I heard him saying was something of this nature:
I’ve been waiting for you to get in touch with your own heart. Over the years your desires have merged with others’ visions and priorities for your life. I’ve watched you drift into good things, but year by year they’ve taken you further from your essential self and deeper longings. I want you to stop looking outside of yourself to find clues of my will. I’ve been silent and moved into the shadowy background during these recent weeks so you can become reacquainted with your heart. I want you to realize that I’ve placed my will in you, and as you’ve gotten in touch with your deeper desires, you’ve gotten in touch with me and what I desire for you.
The Energy of Desire
It seems inevitable that part of maturing and growing into adulthood is a process of coming to terms with our earnest desires. You could rightly say that children and adolescents are wanting, needing, longing beings. Just take a three-year-old through the checkout counter at the grocery! As we enter young adulthood, we begin to learn that some of our larger desires and needs will require that we forgo certain immediate desires and needs. In other words, we learn to moderate or deny some desires in the short run, which is evidence of growing maturity.
This is a good thing as it relates to healthy maturation and the wise pursuit of the fuller life we are being called to live. It becomes a bad thing when we begin to habitually dodge our substantial desires for lesser ones, using the lesser as fuel to get what gives immediate gratification. What we fail to see and forgo is desire’s greatest value—providing a rendezvous with God. When we locate our deep, persistent, heart-oriented longings, we identify a place of God’s deep presence and movement. As we vulnerably engage with God around our desires, we find solidarity and communion with Christ. Surprisingly, we discover that desiring isn’t primarily about fulfilling. Desire is a powerful spiritual energy that moves us toward God and the life we were created to live.
Adapted from the recently released book When Faith Becomes Sight by Beth A. Booram and David Booram. Copyright (c) 2019 by Beth A. Booram and David Booram. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, www.ivpress.com.