Toward Desire

When I'm in a good place mentally, I do things out of a desire to love - to do good simply for the sake of doing good. When I do things in this way, without an agenda, I feel the power of God inside me.

When I feel stuck in fear, shame, and self-protect mode and I can't seem to find a single ounce of desire to love, I ask God to reveal it in different little places in my day to day life. Then, when the desire comes, I don't worry about what I did to that person yesterday or what I might do to that person tomorrow. I just go with the urge to do good and risk the consequences.

We are all a mixture of good and evil. Somewhere deep inside, we desire to do some of the most amazing feats of goodness that have ever been heard of. On the other hand, deep in our hearts we can also find some of the most horrifying desires to even include murdering our very own spouses with our silence, our resentments, or our manipulations and control. It's all there.

Since we are a mixture of the greatest goods and the greatest evils, we must rely on the grace of God. At the cross, He forgives everything. At the resurrection, He turns us into new creatures capable of being like Him. Despite the mixture, we take a chance - we ask God to help us find the desire inside us to do good. Then He helps us find it and sometimes we do things that are told of in the heavens.

Imperfection. Get some.

The fact that I can't finish everything, be everywhere, or say every word correctly to each friend and enemy is not only okay - it is something that can be turned into an outward form of love.

What I mean is that one thing I've experienced lately in my relationships is that if I embrace or value my imperfection, then I truly hold more concern for the person in front of me than when I strive to act perfectly towards them. On the other hand, if I value perfection, then I hold more concern for hiding my shame or feelings of inadequacy from my own heart or from the person in front of me. Thus, I actually care less about humanity by striving to be perfect. My focus is less on the person and more on hiding my shame.

Of course, we all have a mixture of motivations, but I think the God-given part of us desires to value our imperfection as a way to love those around us. We just have to ask God to help us find that desire which He has already put into us. So, what I see is that valuing or even treasuring my imperfection is a form of outward love. I also believe that the more we value our own imperfection, the more it helps us to connect with the imperfection of others in a more healthy way.

Gratitude and Power

A life of authenticity, vulnerability, and moving towards what we desperately want (i.e. relationship) and are completely terrified of (i.e. relationship) all at the same time brings about some of the deepest feelings of gratitude I've ever known. One of the reasons I believe in Jesus' teaching is because he doesn't sugar coat anything. We are capable of the greatest evils and we are capable of the greatest acts of love and miracles. At the cross and in real life, He engages us in the light and in the dark. What I also believe is that a person who carries God inside him or her is that he or she is capable of doing things in this life that might be spoken of for eternity. It might be as simple and unassuming as treating someone with kindness and equality without pretense.