If you could sum up what drives your life in one word, what would it be?  How would you define it?  Would you choose the word love?  Or happiness?  Or relationships?  Or intimacy?  What would it be?  I would say that our existence could be summed up in one word: desire.  If we are really honest about our lives, we would admit that we desire and live for what we desire.  Our desires motivate us, inspire, bring us joy when they are met and bring suffering when they go unmet.

One of our deepest desires is to be loved, so we search out and define our lives by our relationships.  We also desire to be significant and to make a difference, so we search out a purpose and a role in our relationships and society.  Again, we all have desires and live for what we desire.  They influence us, powerfully.  One of the most beautiful truths in the Bible is that God created us this way.  He gave us the capacity to desire and gave us our deepest, truest and most real desires.  The greatest desire He has given us is to delight in Him.  The Psalmist says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37.4).  The great promise is that as we grow in desiring God, He will give us that which we deeply desire, the reasons for our existence.  Jesus said that the goal of life is to “love God with all our hearts” (Matthew 22.37). 

In short, Jesus says that we will only be most satisfied when we hunger and thirst to know Him intimately in a relationship. This is what we were made for, this is why we exist.  God wants to speak to us and He loves to do it in the wilderness.  He is calling out to you, “Come to me, please, come to me.  I want to speak with you, I want to satisfy the deepest desires of your heart.” 

Our problem is our sin.   Sin is our choice to disrespect, to disregard and to dishonor God.  We follow our desires that don’t draw us closer to God and to one another, but instead they push us away leaving us isolated and afraid.  Instead of loving and worshiping Him, we love and worship creation and/or ourselves.    It leaves us empty and dissatisfied.  But God still pursues us and calls to us.  He beckons us to come to Him and find the rest and joy for which we we’re made.

Our choice is to respond.  How will you respond?  Could I suggest to just “get out there!”  He is calling to you and waiting for you to answer. I believe that you will answer, just like God promised Israel would: And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. Hosea 2.15b