Divine Plagiarism

NOTE: This is where this whole story started, two and a half months ago.

So the deep theological insight. It will sound totally obvious, but it is revolutionary for me. God is not offended by our desires. We should tell Him the desires of our heart, and He will either meet them, or will change our desires into what He wants them to be, if we submit those desires to Him through obedience and communication. When I wanted [one kind of aircraft], I totally wanted them. I prayed at length about them. Yet over time, I found talking to God that I started wanting [another kind] more, felt led there and ultimately thats what I ended up wanting, and thats what He gave me and blessed. It wasnt that I asked once, He said no, so I abandoned all hope and waited for something to come along that He would say yes to. Not that at all: I actively pursued [the first kind], expressed that desire to God, but was willing to obey, and would not take matters into my own hands (ie make Ishmael.) So He kenw more about what I really wanted than I did, and He showed that to me over time. Its like the old saying 'you cant drive a parked car.' I didnt go zero to 60 back to zero and then back to 60 on desire. I desired passionately, and pursued passionately, and God directed my pursuit (changed the vector not the amount) toward what He had for me, as long as I 1) continued to communicate my desires to Him, and 2) did not try to go outside of His will to meet my desire, kept obeying. And remembering the parable of the widow, God will not get annoyed if I keep asking 10 zillion times, as long as I am willing to obey His answer. And I can ask again. At some point, either He says yes, or He changes my heart into something that wants what He wants for me. Crazy thought, that our desires are not offenisve to God. Even more so, if we try to convince ourselves to change our desires by ignoring them, we leave ourselves open to attack. The enemy knows where we are lying to ourselves, and will exploit it. He will provide us corrp[ut means to satisfy those desires, which will blindside us, as we are pretending those desires dont exist. The only way around this is to be open and honest, and totally submit those desires to God.

Not entirely surprisingly, this was relevant to me on the old issue. I realized that I still did love her, and ignoring it didnt change it, in fact, it made me more vulnerable to attack, as I was not allowing God into the place in my heart I had walled off and erased from the maps, because I was not willing to go there. So the enemy would use that as an avenue against me. For some reason, I though God would be offended if I told Him that desire. Im not sure where that came from. But after talking to some friends on some sort-of unrelated topics, God totally spoke to me about being honest with Him. So after much prayer, I told Him my desire that somehow He would bring about a miracle, that somehow totally beyond my ablitiy to imagine, He would bring together His daughter (cf) and I, and that all things would be made new again between us. It was a strange thought, to be lobbying God, but I thought more about and realized our idea of submission is far too passive, and in a way far too lazy. Too much like the Buddhist Nirvana, we seek to forget desire to allow ourselves to obey God through our own strength. But obedience is active. We need to desire, to desire passionately, fiercely, yet yield these desires to God and never seek to fulfill them outside of Him. And He will grant us the desires of our heart, either now, later, or in changing our desires into something that He has for us. I never look back and want [that first kind]. I am ecstatic I went [the second kind.] But if I hadnt wanted [the first kind,] I wouldnt have been as happy in [the second kind,] I would have always had 'what if' questions. So I acknowledge this to myself and God. For some reason that I cannot totally understand, especailly given her and my history, I am still in love with [girl.] I still passionately and totally desire her as a mate. And this is yielded to God totally now, in a way it wasnt before.

Desire is like the offerings of the old testament. We dont kill the offering, let it decompose, and then carry the scraps to the altar. We take the offering, in all its life and vitality, and kill it on the altar, giving it totally, almost unmanageably, to God. If we do not feel our desires, we cannot really sumbit them to God. Yet we must obey Him still in our desire, for desire is not license. So in acknowledging this desire to Him, in petitioning Him about it actively and continually, I become the widow of the parable. Yet I will continue to direct that desire, that request, to Him and Him alone, and I will not seek to meet it through my own strength. If there is to be a miracle, I will recognize it, I will see His authorship. But until then, I will bring all my tenacity to bear.

And here I learn something about faith. 'Oh Lord, I believe, please help me to believe.' God brings us to the limit of our strength, our works, when we realize that all we can do through our own strength is open ourselves up to His love, and this is not any work done through our own strength regardless, merely an acceptance of His amazing work on the Cross. Faith is the same way. I am realizing that I only have enough faith to ask God for faith. But this is enough. So I pray for the spirutual faith Paul talks about, that God would give me the faith and hope to pray this prayer, to persist in it. That God would strengthen me to endure in this desire until He changes her heart or mine. That I would petition Him without ceasing on this, without losing hope, as much of a fools hope as it is, as crazy as it is. Only in His strength can I pray this, yet anything that is beautiful in me is Him regardless. Yet in His strength, I find myself praying more selflessly, more compassionately, more passionately that I had before, than I had through my own strength. I want her not because of any of my impoversihed, controlling weak love, but because she is a daughter of God, because she reminds me of Him, because I see her through His eyes again, and because I could serve Her well as a husband. I ask Him for the opportunity to fight for her heart again, and I as Him for the strength to fight. So I desire fully, recklessly, crazily. But I desire in submission to Him. And I will persist in my petition until He answers in changing my heart or hers. Either way, I learn much about Him, about faith and about hope. Interestinglly, in the context of praying these prayers that I had for some reason (fear and the avoidance of pain) banned myself from, I feel much more free to worship Him, much more joyful. I am able to bless her, which was formerly an act of the will, now my heart truly desires that she is blessed, that He makes His face to shine upon her. This is amazing to me. And this is, once again, my hope. That the old would pass away, and all things would be made new again. In this world and the next.

There is an aspect of dominion, of being a man, that I do not think that I had previously grasped. If a king had a son, a prince, he would want that prince, who he was training to be like himself, to be aggressive in decisions, to be eager to wield authority, to be passionate about his role. That prince would need to be submitted to the kings authourity, not trying to bring about his plans in his own way, not schemning without telling the king. But if the prince was totally submitted to the king, the king would love to hear of the princes desires, his ideas, his petitions. This is far better than having a morose, inactive child who hardly wanted to bear the mantle of prince, who sat in the corner, and said 'whatever you want.' And in this is dominion. God desires me as a man to not be passive, not to run in fear from desire for fear of bring hurt. He wants me to bear the mantle He has given me with vigor and energy, to desire fully, yet bring those deisres to Him for fulfillment, whether directly or indirctly through teaching me about what I really want. Desire leads us to establish dominion, but that dominion is to be one of love, one submitted to God. And this is active submission, very different from the weak-kneed passive submission which is so much safer and so much more widely practiced. Consider a man with his family. That man should greatly desire the love of his family, and should desire greatly to love his family in return. Yet if He does not submit that love to God, it becomes domineering and controlling. Only in submission to God does the man become free to pursue his desires fully. For the man to sumbit the family to God by devaluing and denying his desires for them is for him to shortchange them and God. So in this is the true nature of dominion: to desire fully, yet yield fully to God. Never forget the first half of what Christ says in the garden: 'I ask that this cup be taken from me, but not my will but Yours be done.'