Simply put He calls to me through desire, and it is as He awakens desire within me, I pursue His desire; this is my ‘calling’ to know His heart and respond well, at any given moment to it.
This is the way of the heart.
Proverbs 4:23 writes “ So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.”
I am invited. You are invited.
The journey began. As most journeys do, in my heart. It was a decision to fully enter in, with my whole heart and self. Letting go of all the false lovers, the masks and fig leaves of my safe and protected well manicured old self. Turning from the ‘safe’ yet false places of abiding, and affections and responding with a yes. At first it was a collection of small yes’s over and over, until my yes grew in conviction- many years in. A conviction that for me there was no other way, but, to live and be true, find my authentic most real self in the love and home of a Good, Perfect, Faithful and Trustworthy Father.
I had to let go of the strengths I used to protect myself, this was a journey of many years, letting go and following Him, His leading, His desire for me. Following into what every true adventure is; full of tentative steps unknown, in mystery at times, even dangers yet bountiful in wonder and discovery. (There is a difference between adventure and expedition). We do not plan or arrange or even get prepared for it, we are chosen and we follow, there is a beautiful yet very real vulnerability to adventure.
As G.K Chesterton writes “an adventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us, it’s a thing that chooses us, we do not choose it."
Colossians 3: 9 (tpt) “...Lay aside, take off, your old Adam, your old life with its masquerade and disguise. For you have acquired new creation life which is continually being renewed into the likeness of the One who created you; giving you the full revelation of God.”
Renewed in the likeness of the One who created you.
I made a response to Love, even though I had been tender and responsive to His whispers since a young age. Here and now I was responding with desire. My awakening and awakened heart changed everything.
I journeyed and still do from the attachments of old to redemption and restoration and towards desire. Towards life. Like any journey there are all kinds of terrains, all kinds of geography and elements but also we experience an abiding place of rest and refreshment at hand in His love.
Often we think desire is a seduction, it is unsafe and will mislead us, but desire is ‘of the Father’ when our hearts are awakened as we encounter His desire, we find It is is His very heart and desire, the closeness to Him that actually reveals and shapes our deepest, truest, glorious desires. It’s less a question of if our desire is good or evil, but of who we are in communion with, to who has our affection. Our affections affect who we are and if we live in communion, union and closeness to Him a well spring of His life flows from ours.
The word De-Sire comes from the Latin meaning "of the Father,"
There are no five or ten step programs to life, well maybe there are, but I fail in them. If i were to have taken them, I would probably find I was still living hindered and small by my own strength and falsehoods. Because it is only in Love, intimacy can we be fully called forth, seen and known. We can but respond to the already given invitation to ‘Follow Him’, to make ourselves vulnerable to love. For to love at all is to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We cannot have, or experience, intimacy out of our false self, that is not our design. And so respond by allowing desire to lead us, it is the greatest journey but it requires all of us.
We must let go, over and over, leaving our ‘Egypt’s’ and ‘homelands’, our old Selves, to pioneer with promise. There is joy in our surrender, He showed us it can be and is often so, it is not always grief and painful detachment, in fact there is joy in our recovery as we attach to greater affections and truth. Our faith is the beauty marks of our knowing, our union with Him, it is out of closeness and surrender, intimacy, that we gain all the faith we need for this adventure we cannot prepare for. In love and nearness we are well prepared.
We Let go, lay aside, to possess.
We face daily the road ahead and it is love that ever compels us on. For He is the pioneer of our promise, it is He that says to us “beloved for you I have a hope and a future, a prepared place, an abiding, a dwelling place in love; for you dear heart I have much more than you could ask dream or imagine. For you my son, my daughter I have life, life abundant.”
Sarah Day