When I was a kid, I would play a snowboarding game called “Amped” on the Xbox. Stellar game! One of the reasons I liked it so much was the soundtrack. One song talked about the streets having no name, another talked about New Year’s Day, and another talked about pride. When I told my parents that I liked the music, my dad proudly admitted that he had uploaded songs of his choice into the game to make up the soundtrack.
And this is how my parents slyly introduced me to U2 - and eventually, all of the other music they listened to as kids in the 80s. They converted me pretty quick.
U2 has a song called “Desire”, one of my favorites of theirs. It’s one of their more upbeat songs, driving powerfully the entire time with huge choruses and blasting guitar chords. Bono belts out the word “desire” in this song 11 times (I counted). I can’t really tell you what the song is about, but I do know that after listening to it in the morning, that word is on my mind the entire day.
Desire is an interesting concept. It is something humans are known to have an abundance of. We all desire something, whether it be a good meal, a warm fireplace, a nice movie, a fun time, etc. Our desires range from shallow and temporal to deep and eternal. They are ever-changing. Sometimes we fight them, other times we embrace them. Almost every action we take is at least affected, if not caused, by desire.
Yet desire is funny. Oftentimes, what we desire in a moment – such as a 6th slice of pizza – turns out to become, in a few hours, incredible regret. Other times, what we vehemently do not desire – such as that serving of broccoli at dinner – turns out to become a great blessing to us.
It’s quite a shame that our desires do not always align with what is best for us. Sometimes, it even seems like most of the time our desires do not lead us on a path of progress. Desire, then, is either the great motivator or the great distractor. I believe this is all an essential part of a mortal experience designed to help us develop Godly character. Controlling when and when not to act on our desires develops character more than perhaps anything else.
I have a friend in Australia – I may have mentioned him before – who struggles with this concept. At one point in his life, he was “all in” with spirituality and living the gospel of Christ. But then things changed. Gradually, the desire to follow Christ faded from his life. He remembered the great experiences and the learned lessons, but he lost the drive. He didn’t want to read the scriptures, pray, attend church or serve in a calling. The desire was gone.
I felt bad for him. I tried to empathize with him. I wondered how this was possible. I had grown up with a strong desire to always follow Christ. However, this friend of mine showed me that not everyone has that same blessing. Now, as a married college student, I have struggled at times with having desire to maintain spirituality while juggling work and school. It’s hard! Sometimes I really want to sleep in rather than going to church. Desire can feel fleeting, especially when it comes to the often time-consuming and patience-requiring effort of becoming more like Jesus.
Here then is the test:
When we do not want to follow Jesus, will we?
The key to passing this test is understanding that the times when we do not “want” to follow Him is exactly the time when we NEED to! Whenever praying or reading the scriptures or anything else is the last thing we want to do, that’s when it must be the first thing we do.
How does that make any sense? Let’s examine that for a moment.
When Lehi partook of the fruit of the Tree of Life in his dream, he described it as being “desirable above all other fruit”. (1 Ne. 8:12) This was a declaration he made AFTER eating it. He did not look at it from afar and say, “hey, that fruit looks better than any other fruit I’ve ever tasted”. He couldn’t do that because he hadn’t tasted it! But then, after feeling its goodness, he knew he wanted it. He may not have wanted it before, but after eating it, he didn’t want any other fruit than that one.
So it seems to be, at least for me, with the gospel. There are plenty of times when I don’t want it – at least, when it isn’t my priority. But then, when I finally commit and get into my scriptures again, I’ll have an experience. And suddenly, I desire to read my scriptures again! Now, it may have taken weeks of reading until that golden nugget experience came about. Those weeks may have required me to read when I really didn’t want to. But after that experience, those weeks were entirely worth it – in fact, I find that I WANTED to read all along, even when I thought I hadn’t! Desire works backwards, making all those times of “not wanting to” irrelevant.
I imagine that’s how Heaven will be. We will have fought through a difficult mortal life. There will have been times when we did hard things we did not want to do, but we did them because they were RIGHT. Then, sitting in paradise with our loved ones, our Heavenly Father, and our Savior, we will be right where we WANT to be. In that moment, will what we desired before even matter? Will it matter that I didn’t want to read my scriptures, or pray, or live a righteous life?
Nope. Even if I didn’t want to do those things at that moment, time will show that all along, I DID want to do those things, because it got me back to God.
Desire is a funny thing. U2 sang about it. Everyone else deals with it every day. We must assess ourselves often, making sure we do not indulge in poor desires, seeking instead for desires that may not come immediately. If our desire is eternal, we will be willing to do things we may not want to do in the moment.
Were I still in Australia, this is what I would say to my friend. This is for you!
Adam
Comments