As a young man I listened carefully to the lessons of old men & women. Their advice reflected the Bible's teaching, however my wanter vehemently disagreed with both. Now the wanter is the little compass inside each person that tells them what will make them happy. I found it hard though to believe that the one who made me, and the wisdom of age were more right than an unknown voice in my head (I'm a smart one that I am). Disturbed by the disagreement, I looked to see how happy the people who had flawlessly carried out the demands of their wanters were. To my dismay, I found them to be like butter spread over too much toast. The few who had reached the end of their wanter's imagination had fallen into misery, and many times thought it better to die then endure their pain. At the other end of the scale, I witnessed many people in compleate poverty overflowing with joy. After this I become hyper aware of all the people around me, carefully carrying out the demands of their wanter's, moving towards the jagged rocks that destroyed the people before them. But if the big red compass guiding me was wrong, was it possible to be happy? I dint know, but I veered from the course set for me. My wanter had a full out fit! It promised me I was missing my hearts desire and foolishly throwing my hopes to the wind. Although scared I soon learned a very profound lesson... my wanter is not omnipotent. In fact it had been dead wrong, and I could safely ignore its complaints.
I wanted my wanter to want the right thing, and soon I learned it could. When I stopped following my wanter, it started following me. Let me say that again because its important, when I stopped following my wanter, it started following me. I did this by denying my wanter a great many things it demanded, and instead chose to align my life with the advice of a higher calling and the wisdom of age. At the crux of this act was changing my ultimate desire, which meant removing myself from the middle, and filling it with God and his love for other people.
Be clear that this is not the same as marrying God for His money - or in other words placing Him next to the center of our lives so he will bless us. We can only move towards one of two opposing directions. At first I moved towards God by moving away from myself. This may be one of the more radical things a human can do, because it defies the most unreasonably trusted voice in our heads. Just understand that using God to serve our selves is not the same as serving him. If we serve Him will it will cost us everything.
This thinking is crazy because I am voluntarily taking a course of action which does not benefit me. Why then am I so happy? It is because the path that appears to offer life, gives death, and the path the appears to give death, gives life. I lost my old self, but something much better replaced it. Consider the following words, they are stated by Jesus in all the Gospels at least once, sometimes twice (hint, hint).
Luke 17:33 "Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it."
People demand the freedom to want, but become slaves to their wants. I am free, and I live in joy. I am not suggesting the Buddhist approach of turning off our wanters. I am suggesting that we need to be smarter than our wanters. A wanter is like a warm fire on a cold night. The problem is that both endlessly demand more. The fire will always want more wood, and the wanter will always demand more gratification. If a person caters to the desires of a fire, it will soon consume their stash of wood and begin to die. When this happens the person grows cold. They must travel into the cold night to gather more wood for their fire. When they come back they dump all the wood they have gathered on the hungry fire, and must soon return to the cold night for more. The person spends an exhausting, cold night gathering wood for a fire they rarely enjoy.
In real life, we know that a fire will always demand more. Despite its hunger, we slowly feed it our stash of wood, so the small fire will keep us warm throughout the night. However, people bulk at the idea of curbing their desires. They agree its probably a good idea to sometimes compromise, but to disobey the wanter? Instead, they tirelessly forgo the enjoyment of what they have to get more. They end up with so much, they rarely enjoy any of it because they spend so much time taking care of it. Both a fire and our desires promise to give more if we feed them, but both fail to deliver beyond a moment.
Our wanter will always demand more, and is a willing slave master.
Our wanter's default settings lead away from joy and peace.
The path to joy and peace is counter intuitive.
Our wanter is an important sense that gives us information, but can easily be fooled (like our other senses).
We can teach our wanter what it should be leading us towards by looking at the bigger picture.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment