Our wants versus our desires
1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a; Ps 85:9, 10, 11-12, 13-14; Rom 9:1-5; Mt 14:22-33
If you’ve ever accompanied a loved one through a terminal illness, you know the wild roller coaster of emotions and feelings such a journey engenders. I once had a friend whose life was suddenly upended by a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer. This was compounded by her longtime struggle with clinical depression.
I remember leaving the hospital most nights pleading with God over what I wanted for her. I wanted her to be healed, for the cancer to somehow go away, to turn back the clock to before this all began. God can do anything; why didn’t he do what I wanted?
My well-rehearsed theology of redemptive suffering wasn’t bringing much solace to either of us. I knew what I wanted and I knew the sickening realization that I wasn’t likely to get it. But I also had faith in God’s compassion, mercy and justice.
In the years since her death, I’ve come to appreciate the distinction between what I wanted and what I desired. Perhaps that sounds like mere semantics to you, but even if you would choose different words, the distinction I am drawing is real.
Our wants are often short-term and real-time. They can flow from immediate, in-your-face experiences of fear, shame, grief, appetite or infatuation. Under their influence, we often fail to grasp life’s broader horizons and deeper meanings that could give purpose to the events and circumstances we endure.
Our desires, on the other hand, are more far-sighted. They are grounded in a vision that sees beyond the present room we find ourselves inhabiting. They bring feelings and emotions that, while not extinguishing our immediate sensations, can nevertheless supersede them.
Upon reflection, I realized that what I most deeply desired for my friend was a sense of peace, that she would know her life had mattered to countless people, that she was loved, and that her low self-perception might come to reflect the true beauty and goodness that others saw in her.
Most of all I desired that she would know the love of God and the consolation of the faith in which she had been raised.
Of course I wanted her cancer to be gone, but she was dying and the intensity of my personal wants did not always bring the depth of my desires for her to the surface — either in my thoughts or in my prayer.
In this Sunday’s extraordinary scene of Peter walking on the water toward Jesus, we get a glimpse into what this “want/desire” dynamic looks like for the apostles.
What does Peter want? Yes, he wants to come to Jesus, he wants to be with Jesus. Perhaps he also wants confirmation that the man appearing before him actually is Jesus, and not some deceiving apparition.
But what does he specifically ask? “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you.” He doesn’t ask to be able to walk on water, nor does he directly ask to be with Jesus. What he asks for is to be able to follow Jesus’ command: “Command me to come to you.”
Imagine that you had a friend who was driving to the store and you wanted a lift. You might ask: “Can I come with?” or “Will you give me a ride?” It’s not too likely that you would say: “Please command me to come with you.”
In other words, what Peter most desires is to be able to follow what Jesus desires for him: “I want my command to be your wish.”
Consider, for example, the foot-washing scene: Peter vehemently didn’t want his feet washed, but at a deeper level, he intimately desired to follow Jesus (which he demonstrated by pleading for his entire body to be washed, once Jesus expressed his own desire).
Take some time this week to inventory your most pressing wants. What is holding your attention, driving your strongest emotions, leading you to spend money, time or effort?
Then, for each of those wants, ask yourself whether they are growing out of a deeper desire that God desires for you, or whether your wants are calling you to follow a command other than God’s. Lord, command me to come to you.