Want What You Want

Most peo­ple do not really want what they want. They merely wish for it. Want­ing is an art. Human desire is still the most pow­er­ful moti­va­tor around — but is quite neglected. The glo­ri­ous quest trans­forms itself into an arm­chair rather eas­ily. When peo­ple want things to be dif­fer­ent, they begin pay­ing the price to make them so. Too often their ener­gies are drained by com­par­ing and com­plain­ing. True desire has to be con­cen­trated. It must stay focused.

It is a lit­tle like the story of a spir­i­tual mas­ter and some of his monks on a walk. A young novice kept talk­ing about how much he wanted to be spir­i­tual. The old mas­ter finally got tired of the end­less wish­ing ver­biage, so while they were cross­ing a stream he grabbed the boy and pushed his head under water. He held him there while the young man flailed around and fought for his very life. Finally, the old man let him up. Once the young under­study could get his breath, the mas­ter looked him in the eye and said, “The day you want spir­i­tu­al­ity as badly as you just wanted air is the day you will find it.”

You really want to change your life? Make some hard deci­sions. Com­mit to the task like you were fight­ing your way out of a cave full of mon­sters. Be will­ing to sac­ri­fice any com­fort, any rela­tion­ship, or any com­mu­nity stand­ing. The day you truly want what you want is the day you get what you want.

Half-heartedness in the sto­ries of Jesus and in the warn­ings about it in the Apoc­a­lypse are noth­ing short of absolutely fright­en­ing. Nature may hate a vac­uum, but spir­i­tu­al­ity com­pletely dis­dains the token approach to any­thing of eter­nal value. Lov­ing God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength is more than some euphemism. It is the stan­dard for the game of life itself. Half-hearted play­ers live and die on the bench.

Want what you want!