Guided By Desire

I mentioned  a couple of posts ago that as my stack of questions gets bigger and my stack of answers gets smaller, my blog gets less focused on opinion and more focused on reflection and observation. That’s not to say I won’t ever utter an opinion again (you should be so lucky)–just that I hold my own opinions more loosely than I used to, so things come out more as observation.

One such observation I have is about how my own view of calling and destiny has changed over time. I used to have this militant sense of calling, that I was “called of God” and completely subject to His command, taking no thought of my own desires. In theory, this sounds noble, but it assumes that the desires of our heart are all selfish and that none of them are God-given, nor that God has any interest in fulfilling those desires. This sets up a lifestyle in which it is assumed that God will mandate that you do what you don’t want to do. At least, this is what it looked like for me.

This outlook began to change when I read Wild At Heart by John Eldredge a few years ago. This was the first time I was introduced to a different concept–the idea that perhaps God actually places certain desires in our hearts to give us a sense of direction for our lives. In other words, if you want to discern your calling, look at your heart’s desires. Granted, as people who are fallen and broken and in the process of being redeemed, we all entertain and fight some evil desires, things based on personal lust, greed, pride, that kind of thing. But I’m talking about something deeper–like when you do something, and something just clicks on the inside of you and makes you say to yourself, I want this to be my life. The kind of deep and noble desire that doesn’t go away with the change of seasons.

As I pondered this idea for a long time, I realized it lined up more with the heart of Scripture than my earlier ideas of calling and destiny. It made sense that Father God would actually want us to take joy in the things He called us to do, and so He might actually encode that into our soul’s DNA, so to speak. It had never occurred to me that our heart’s desire might give us a clue as to what God had called us to do. So I stopped (fervently) asking God what He wanted me to do (read: what are your orders, sir?), and began asking, What is it that I really want to do? What desires has God placed in my own heart? 

In other words, I stopped being driven by a militant sense of calling and obligation, and began being guided by desire.

Again, to be clear, I’m not talking about desire in the sense of whim or fancy, or adopting some sort of hedonistic self-pleasure mentality. This concept of being guided by desire must be balanced with a clear understanding of man’s sinful impulses and a healthy fear of God–it is not an anything-goes thing. At the heart of this, it’s still ultimately about being guided by the Holy Spirit. It’s just that I believe fallen man is still created by God, and I believe certain heartfelt desires are built into us as He forms us. When our life (along with our sinful impulses) is yielded to His lordship, I believe those deeper desires can serve as a guide–a map, if you will, to what He really has called us to do. This is what I mean by being guided by desire.

It is this fresh understanding of gifts and callings that has informed my journey over the past few years, giving me a fresh sense of direction and helping me to put away certain things that I had assumed God wanted from me, but were not really in my heart. It is what helped me see a bigger picture with my own musical giftings besides just the box of being a worship leader in an institutional church–and it actually saved me when (as I’ve mentioned before) I wound up completely alienated from that structure.

Let me give one other specific example of what this looks like in my life today. Let’s talk about why I am so drawn to the creative community with regard to mission.

As I take an honest look at my life, there are two times that stand out more than any other as far as times that I truly felt part of a community, felt like I really belonged. Ironically, neither of these times had to do directly with the context of church (although I have always felt this should have been the case, and tried to make it so). Rather, both of these seasons where I felt a true sense of belonging had to do with music and art–being part of an artistic community, in relationship and camaraderie with others who were built like me. In both cases, I was indeed around Christians, but for me the connection was less about shared belief, and more about shared passion (and in one case, shared mission).

I realize that ever since I experienced those two seasons of true community, I have spent my life trying to recapture that sense of belonging. Yes, it’s rooted in a sense of personal need and fulfillment, but it is more than that. Something resonated deep in my soul during those times. Something fit into place for me. That’s why I think I’ve longed for it ever since.

Even now, as hard as it has been at times to embed myself into a new community here in Denver and even though I still feel more connection must be made, I still feel something resonate deep inside me when I am surrounded by these creative people–and it grows the more I get to know them. Last night, I went to the first show I’d attended in several weeks, and it was almost like I’d never been gone. The hugs I gave (and received) from the musicians I knew there in the room filled me with that same sense of community, that sense that this is my tribe. Some of these people are Christians, some are not. But the sense of belonging is unmistakable. This is why, even as I pursue my heart desire by deepening and expanding my musical gifts, I also am taking this as my cue that my calling–my God-chosen mission field–is the creative community. Whatever this ends up looking like, I believe I will be able to be a blessing to artistic/creative people more than probably anyone else.

Had I not had this paradigm shift–had I continued being driven by obligation rather than guided by desire–I don’t know if I would ever have seen it this way, or had the openness of mind to let things happen this way. But even when I was striving to build a church, this “thing” was somehow there. In the ten years The Wild One and I co-pastored the house church, I often marveled at how many right-brained people were drawn to our little group, and how creativity was so often emphasized naturally, to the point that sometimes I felt guilty that the left-brained folks we had might feel a bit left out. I can definitely tell you that even if our mission had continued to draw creative types, the militant mandated sense of calling would definitely done more harm than good. But it seems this connection with the creative community has always been there, even when it was clouded by a misguided sense of purpose.

But now I am rambling. What I guess I’m trying to say by all this is that ultimately, being guided by the God-given desires in my heart has opened me up to all sorts of possibilities for life and mission that I didn’t see before–not to mention that it has given me a much greater sense of joy and fulfillment as I pursue these things. I cannot convey how freeing it was to realize that God actually wanted me to enjoy what I do, and that there is something of divine purpose in pursuing those deeper desires in my heart. It’s something that can’t be fully described, but probably needs to be experienced in order to be understood.