Chapter 5 - Desire

Chapter 5 selected 7 scripture passages to illuminate the depth of desire we can or should have for God (with my personally assigned title for each passage):

• Philippians 3: 7-11 (Knowing Christ surpasses everything)


• Psalm 63: 1-8 (The only satisfier is knowing God)


• Luke 9: 46-50 (The least is the greatest)


• John 12: 1-8 (Getting priorities rights)


• I Peter 2: 1-10 (Man’s inverted wisdom)


• Romans 8: 18-25 (The surpassing hope in God)


• John 7: 37-44 (The surpassing thirst-quenching of the Holy Spirit)

The hymn for the week was "Oh! To Be Like Thee ". (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Catherine de Hueck Doherty, M. Basil Pennington, Thomas R. Kelly, Henri J. Nouwen, E. M. Bounds, A. W. Tozer, John Powell and William Barclay. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)

Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:

• “Prayer is a contact of love between God and man.”
  (The next paragraph said that “married people don’t need a bedroom to make love”, explaining that “making love” does not necessarily mean what people immediately think it means, but can consist of looking into each other’s eyes, or holding hands, or simply being aware of each other in the midst of a crowd. I was reminded of the love poem that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to Robert Browning:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.”

• “I find myself asking what I am getting out of this retreat, but I realized today that that is the wrong question. This retreat is not for me, but for Him. It is to give Him, at least for this little while, the fullest attention and love that I can, freed as I am from many other cares and concerns that ordinarily clutter my life…”
• “…there is a deeper, an internal simplification of the whole of one’s personality.… This amazing simplification comes when we “center down”, when life is lived with singleness of eye, from a holy Center … and we are wholly yielded to Him.”
• “The Lord will reveal himself and enter into our lives to the extent we (really desire) and believe this is possible and want it.”
• “Desire is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated craving; an intense longing… Without desire, prayer is a meaningless mumble of words. … And yet even if it be discovered that desire is honestly absent, we should pray anyway… pray whether we feel like it or not, and not allow our feelings to determine our habits of prayer. … we ought to pray for desire to pray… so that praying, henceforth, should be an expression of ‘the soul’s sincere desire’.”
• “To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love… Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God.”
• “It is this desire (for something more than human resources can promise or produce) that carries us beyond what we can see into the darkness and obscurity of faith. It is a hunger that can be satisfied in God alone. … This inner restlessness and disquiet can well be God sowing the first seeds of faith in the human heart.”
• “Do you desire righteousness with that intensity of desire with which a starving man desires food, and a man parched with thirst desires water?... In effect Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Do you want to become my disciples enough to give me the unconditional first place in your life?’ ”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 5 not quoted) mean to you? I look forward to your responses.

John