The Discipline of Desire

Dear Trekker,

A special book in my library, a keepsake, is “The Disciplines of Life,” 1948, Scripture Press, Wheaton, IL. by Dr. V. Raymond Edman, then president of Wheaton College. It came into my hands quickly upon arriving for college in Wheaton the fall of 1952. It contains much wisdom from a very disciplined man. (Check it out on Amazon!)

There is within a selection on the discipline of desire. That one’s individual desires must be disciplined seems almost un-American in this day and age. “Be all you can be!” “You can have anything you want if you just want it bad enough.” “Why not if it feels good?” “Everyone else is doing it?” “Am I my brother’s keeper?” These, and similar phrases, often said glibly or even sneeringly, seem the order of the day. Yet, undisciplined desire is the bane of every man, woman or child. Hearing and believing this truth the ‘hard way’… the school of hard knocks… is likely why the phrase, “Life does not consist in the absence but mastery of one’s passions,” has been on my heart for some time, as shared with you in a recent MEN newsletter.

Desires are either stumbling blocks or building stones, and often grow out of latent talent. There are few things more sad than undeveloped talent. Wise parents, teachers and coaches can spot talent and are relentless in developing it. For the glory of the Creator, we should be all we can be. But without discipline, it will not happen! When but a young lad, my idol was a local high school speedster on the cinder track who actually appeared in Parade Magazine as one of the most promising talents in the nation. He had raw talent. He ran like a gazelle. But, his training habits were undisciplined and self-indulgent. He smoked. In one of the biggest races of his career, he ‘pulled-up’, so instantly exhausted the muscles stopped functioning. Lingering lungs could not capture the air needed for body demands. I was one disappointed little boy! I will never forget that day, etched into my mind, as if it happened yesterday! It is always too soon to quit in the race of life, but undisciplined desires will result in a premature departure for each of us. You can count on it.

Even the Lifegiver, Jesus, ‘learned’ obedience and discipline. The Apostle Paul’s account of Jesus’ attitude toward discipline, obedience and suffering is well chronicled in his Philippian letter. (Ch 2) And there is hope for us, because the Father has chosen to live His life in and through us. So, in this same passage, we too, are to ‘get going with our salvation’, our ‘disciplined desires’, knowing that God is in us, helping us to want what He wants, and then helping us to ‘do it’. (Phil 2:12, 13)

Desires, our appetites, I believe must be focused, harnessed and geared. Our desires must be focused on pleasing the Lifegiver, the Father. “Do all that you do heartily as unto God,” is Paul’s admonition to the Colossians. Enjoy life, live it to the max, but do it for God’s glory and not your own! The blossom and fruit of desire will then become endless and ever so rewarding.

Desires must be harnessed and/or mastered. For example, no male today gets messed up in pornography if desires are harnessed. Such addictions gain a foothold when passions are unbridled. Self-indulgence leads to destruction; linking one’s desire to the yoke of Christ realizes an ‘easy yoke and a light burden’. “My yoke is easy” because we are yoked in discipline with Christ and there the burden becomes in reality quite light, because we are not doing it ‘my way’.

Desires are to be geared to serve others! How easily one’s faith can become derailed if we live for self. In the same Philippians 2 account, our brother and fellow trekker Paul reminds us to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others.” If desires are not disciplined by obedience to Christ and others, our actions will be stumbling blocks to others, not to speak of ourselves. Often, to follow our own desires without gearing them to serve others, will result in a shameful indifference to those young in faith or years. When Jesus said we cannot serve God and mammon, He surely was saying we will have great difficulty indulging ourselves and pleasing God at the same time. It is a tough pill for a high-spirited American to swallow, but to exercise one’s ‘liberty in Christ’ to the extreme, may be to mimic the sneer of Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” If we do not discipline ourselves to be our brother’s keeper, we surely will not be, and we will be cast aside. You don’t hear much about Cain after he killed his brother. He was buried in the trash heap of history, the greatest example we can imagine of undisciplined desire! Such lack of discipline – unfocused, unharnessed, and not in gear will always prove over time to be a stone of stumbling rather than the building block the Lord Christ desires and requires.

Trekker, I believe the desire that is disciplined to focus on pleasing Him who has called us out of darkness and into the light, to seek the welfare of others and to deny one’s self, is the difference between ‘abundant living’ and existing. To relish responsibility rather than liberty, to be constructive and consistently charitable, will strengthen others along the path and silence the jeers and sneers of the skeptic. There is no defense against a changed life lived for others. Smiles and service will always win the battle.

As we climb the mountain, friends, our ‘loss’ of liberty when we discipline our desires will be more than compensated when the ‘power within’ surges forward to please Him and serve others. And when we arrive at the summit, we can look around and say, “We did it together!” Lone rangers don’t reach the summit; those who do, climb together and never leave a buddy behind. Keep passing the baton!

Desiring to please the Lifegiver,

Jim Meredith