Inner Freedom and the Role of Desires
We’re painting a picture of discipleship that is perhaps a little odd, and it’s certainly different from many of our assumptions.
Western Christianity often concludes that a disciple is simply a convert, someone who has decided to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. This assumption can be traced, though somewhat persuasively, to early American revivalists and their events, where the aim was to persuade people to recite a sinner’s prayer.
Though I’m not a biblicist, we should note that neither the sinner’s prayer nor the concept of “accepting Jesus into our hearts” is found in Scripture.
Some assume that being a disciple means being an educated convert. This is someone who has said the requisite prayer and has dedicated themselves to sermons, Bible studies, and theological books to learn more about God, Jesus, and the Christian life. This is commendable, though J.C. Ryle poignantly noted, “A man possessed by thousands of demons recognized Jesus, but the men possessing thousands of scriptures couldn’t.”
Some assume a disciple is a professional Christian, such as a pastor, or a person who serves the most at church, or perhaps someone who is uncommonly generous.
We’re defining a disciple a bit differently: someone who is increasingly awake or attuned to God, others, themselves, and creation and culture. We become more attuned by intentionally apprenticing with Jesus, by experiencing Him. We desire to think, speak, act, relate, and love as He does.
As we become more awake or attuned, we become freer: free to love, serve, and give without having to think about it. Both our conscious and unconscious layers are affected, and our character slowly forms. This journey is sometimes called spiritual formation.
Freedom
As we explored last time, the concept of freedom has been drastically and unfortunately reduced in the modern era.
Followers of Jesus usually accept that our salvation results in freedom from the penalty of sin and death, yet we remain all too aware that we continue to sin and we’re going to die someday. So we futurize our freedoms, failing to embrace the reality that an abundant, liberated, transformative inner life is available to us now.
If we take Jesus’ proclamation in Luke 4:18-19 seriously, we are invited to ask ourselves a few questions: What aspects of my inner life continue to inhibit me from living the free life Jesus promises? Do I have a vision for my life if I experience those freedoms?
Ouch.
Here’s a personal example. Like others, I have often placed too much value on what people think of me. This has made me an easy target for narcissistic, seductive predators. In my naivete, I drank in their compliments, affections, and admiration, only to be distraught and disintegrated when my usefulness ran out, or I disappointed them, and they turned, as narcissists often do.
I’ve been following Jesus since I was 6, but this tendency of mine isn’t freedom—it’s a form of inner bondage, what is referred to as a “disordered attachment.” Though I can swear up and down that I’m a child of God and find my identity and value in Him (my belief), my heart has often operated from the assumption that my identity and value are assigned and dictated by other people (my idea).
However, if I desire to become more like Jesus legitimately, I recognize that He experienced no such disconnection between his beliefs and ideas. He is the freest person ever to grace the planet. He quickly recognized seductive personalities and refused to be bent and twisted by them. He loved them…though He wasn’t enslaved to them as I have been.
It’s ironic that I often separate my disordered relationships with God, others, myself, and creation from the faith. Considering God is so passionate, intimate, and loving that He keeps creating millions of people to know and woo, one might have thought I would have connected these dots earlier.
To be fair, the first step to allowing Jesus to heal our disordered attachments is to become aware of them. That is no easy feat. It takes courageous curiosity, humility, and usually a swift kick to the head.
Freer than Free
When Jesus announced that He came to “set free those who are oppressed,” we might consider how far this freedom extends. Does it include freedom from self-berating, inner arrogance, and unhealthy relational attachments to parents, spouses, children, spiritual leaders, and friends? Might it include freedom from the need to be recognized, applauded, and affirmed?
Could it include freedom from lifelong grudges, hidden rage, lingering insecurities, a victim mentality, and relentless people-pleasing? How about freedom from using doctrine, spiritual gifts, intelligence, or money to control other people? What about freedom from the inexhaustible fear-mongering that pervades the media, political elections, and social media feeds?
Deep Desires
A few years ago, I spent time with an intense, committed Christian man who is a professional disciple-maker. He spends his days meeting one-on-one with men in all sorts of situations: business leaders, divorcees, pastors, men struggling with addictions, ex-prisoners, etc. He views his role as guiding these men toward a deeper knowledge of God and the Christian faith.
As we continued our conversations, I sensed that, though passionate for Jesus and men in general, he didn’t seem very happy or joyful. I began to wonder if my new friend was angry. I thought I sensed something simmering beneath his articulate and polished exterior.
We’ve wrestled with the concept of ideas for a while now. Let’s take a look at the second vital force often hidden in our hearts – desires – and how they often intersect with our ideas.
I finally mustered up the courage to ask him, “Is this the type of work you really want to do?” He glanced at me quizzically and replied with some bravado, “This is what God has called me to do. What I want doesn’t matter.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this type of comment. I’ve found it relatively common. Indeed, it comes from a place of loyalty and gratitude to God, and that’s commendable. But what is the underlying assumption, the idea, that drives such a statement?
“My wants and desires don’t matter. They don’t matter to me, and they don’t matter to God. I’m just here to do what He wants me to do.”
But if we play out this idea, it prompts us to wonder what sort of God doesn’t give a rip about what we want. If you are a loving parent, are your children’s deepest desires to be ignored, rejected, or overridden no matter what?
Our Desires Matter
Trevor Hudson writes, “Given how desires shape our lives, one would think that careful attention would be given to our desires in our churches. Yet I have seldom met anyone brought up in the church who was taught about their importance. If mention was ever made of them, it was usually negative.”
But our desires work like our ideas: some are light, and some are dark. Some of our desires are very, very good.
Hudson continues, “I want to suggest that our desires do not always oppose God’s will. Instead, they are a vitally important dimension of our humanity and of our life with God. While not all of them are authentic expressions of who we truly are, discerning the deepest desires of our hearts can lead us toward becoming who God wants us to be and doing what God wants us to do. When we become more open to our desires and allow them to direct us, we find the life God wants to give us.”
So we find ourselves at this fascinating intersection of ideas and desires: Do we function from the idea that our desires don’t matter to God, and to love God means we deny that He made us creatures with good desires?
It sounds very Christian when we claim, “We just want to do what God wants us to do.” But what if God cares about what we want? What if He gave us these desires in the first place? What if God speaks to us through our inner desires?
Step 1
As we continue to wrestle with the Discipleship Dilemma, we’ll turn our attention to how we uncover the hidden ideas and desires that so powerfully impact our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation and culture. If journeying inward with Jesus to uncover our ideas and desires is essential to our spiritual formation and freedom, what is the first step? How do we become more awake and attuned in these vital relationships?
Gerald Fagin answers: “A person cannot come to honest self-knowledge without first knowing they are loved.”
“The challenge for many people is to accept God’s love as unconditional. This acceptance needs to take place in our hearts as well as our heads. God took the initiative in loving us long before we were able to love in return. We do not need to win God’s love. We cannot possibly earn it. The love of God for each person is a pure gift that only calls for response.”
As some of us have discovered, this acceptance may not come easily to our hearts, even if our heads believe it. To live in the reality of God’s unconditional love is often different from simply believing it’s true.
And that reality is what we’re going to look at next week.
