D is for desire

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:78-79)

What do you want? The question caught me off guard. It came out of the blue, but I quickly realized my interrogator was asking what I wanted for Christmas.

I stumbled about, having not given it a moment’s thought during this Corona-saturated season.

Then morning came, a new day, light flooding the living room as the radio played the great Amen at the end of Handel’s Messiah, sopranos soaring, filling the room and my heart with the joy of completion.

And there was the answer. This is what I desire, to know this extraordinary love sweeping away every darkness, filling my heart with the joyous light of eternal morning.

This desire is the engine of our spiritual life.

Beneath the wants and wishes of daily life, beyond our hungers for food and safety, companionship and success, a new phone or better home, we want more. Deeper yearnings stir, drawing us toward something hard to name; the desire for I know not what some call it.

Ultimately, this is the desire for God. We yearn to be one, engulfed in the Heart in whom there is no darkness, filled with a Love beyond anything we have ever known—like on a December morning when the sunlight floods the room and tells you what you’ve always wanted … and so desperately need.

So befriend your desires as December deepens; pray them. Sooner or later, they lead you to a manger where lies the desire of your heart.

Pr. David L. Miller