“Lord, all my desire is before Thee”, sang David in Psalm 38. Here was the sweet Psalmist of Israel with, as it were, his heart fully open before God. And he knew that it was full of sin. Yet he was going out in living desire towards God, although this was the One against whom he had sinned. David was fully aware that God knew his desires and everything implied by these desires – indeed that even the most hidden activity of his heart was fully open to the all-seeing Jehovah, as he himself acknowledged on another occasion: “Thou understandest my thought afar off”.
But David knew too that his only hope was that the God he had sinned against would act for him in forgiveness and healing. And these desires said something about David himself. The nineteenth-century Aberdeen minister James Stewart pointed out that “our hopes or desires, even more than our actions, depend upon our characters”. Accordingly our hopes and desires are a better indicator than our actions of what our state of soul really is. The fact that David was taking the side of God against himself made clear that he was on the side of God. And John Newton emphasised that holiness is not so much to be looked for in what others can see; it consists, he said, “in spiritual desires, in hungerings, thirstings and mournings”. These longings of heart, which the Most High can see perfectly, indicate the presence of spiritual life, and their absence shows that spiritual life has never begun. Let us glance in four directions where living desires may be recognised.
1. Sin. If our character has been renewed by divine grace, our desires will go out to God because of our guilt. This was certainly true of David. “Mine iniquities”, he mourned, “are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me” (Ps 38:4). He yearned for forgiveness but, in common with the children of God in every generation, he would not be content merely to be assured that he was free from all liability to be punished for his sin. He was concerned also because of the evil of his sin; he went on to say: “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness”. So, when he expressed his repentance: “I will be sorry for my sin” (v18), it was not only because of the guilt which would follow him eternally if he was to bear the
consequences of his transgressions. His desires went out to God even more because of the offensiveness of sin in the sight of God.
Apart from grace, we will be satisfied with what is only a poor approximation to keeping the law – though what God demands is perfection. “Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord” (1 Sam 15:20), when only in a very imperfect way had he done what God had directed him. Saul found it very easy to excuse his sin. The immediate consequences of his sin caused him concern, but that was all. He told Samuel, “I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord” (1 Sam 15:24, 25). Saul had no desire to draw near to God, only to engage in the outward formalities that would maintain his standing before the people. Similarly sinners may wish to escape a lost eternity, but they have no desire to be free from sin or to enjoy communion with God. John Owen points out that “all that a sinner’s most choice consideration of God, in all His own essential excellencies, can lead him to” is “a desire to avoid Him to all eternity”. The desire of God’s children is different; they long not only to be rid of particular sins but for sin to be removed from them altogether. W S Plumer expressed it well: “God’s people are holy. If they were as holy as they desire, they would never sin any more.”
2. Christ. In what direction do our desires go, when our conscience is awakened because of our sins? Have we anything more than a wish to be less sinful, to work out a righteousness of our own? Or do we realise that, if we are left to ourselves, these are vain hopes, altogether dishonouring to God? Paul had a truly God-honouring desire: to “be found in [Christ], not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ” (Phil 3:9). And how many of God’s people since then have found that Paul’s words expressed their own desires perfectly! Their desires for Christ were open to God; only He could satisfy them.
When Christ insisted on the necessity of faith in Himself as a crucified Saviour, many reacted strongly against it. “This is an hard saying”, they said; “who can hear it?” (Jn 6:60). They departed; they had no desire for such teaching. Not so the disciples; they wished to go on listening to Him. Peter expressed their desire: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). They had felt the preciousness of Christ’s teaching and their hearts were drawn towards Him in the hope of their souls being fed by Him again and again in the future. No wonder the Greeks who came to Jerusalem for the Passover, in whose hearts also the Holy Spirit was evidently working, expressed the desire: “Sir, we would see Jesus” (Jn 12:21).
Thomas Watson demonstrated his understanding of spiritual life, so typical of the Puritans, when he wrote: “You value grace above the gold of Ophir. How could you see the worth and lustre of this jewel if God’s Spirit had not opened your eyes? You desire to believe, and mourn that you cannot believe. Are these tears not the beginnings of faith? You desire Christ and cannot be satisfied without Him. This beating of the pulse evidences life. The iron could not move upwards if the lodestone did not draw it. The heart could not ascend in holy desires for God if some heavenly lodestone had not been drawing it.”
3. Eternity. The desire of the unconverted is focused on the things of this life. They have no wish to live a godly life though, like Balaam, they may pray, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” (Num 23:10). He had no desire to live the life of the righteous. He wanted to remain as long as possible in the company of those who thought like himself, and only when it was too dangerous to stay away from God any longer – when death stared him in the face – would he wish to be among the righteous. But it would seem that Balaam was too hardened in sin ever to seek the Lord. The time to seek salvation is now. Yet the world always desires to enjoy the present moment in sin, rejecting God and His claims. This was the scene Isaiah saw when God called Judah to repentance: “Behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die” (Is 22:13) – without ever thinking that God may require their souls that very day. Let us heed the warning of Rowland Hill: “You cannot be happy while you live, you cannot be happy when you die, you cannot be happy in eternity, unless you go to the blessed Jesus to save your precious souls. Why should you delay?”
The desire of God’s children is to enjoy God in this life as well as in eternity. Joseph Irons expressed clearly the contrast between them and the ungodly: “The blissful prospect of spending an eternity in the immediate presence of God is never valued but by those who know something about enjoying His presence on earth. . . . If you know nothing about enjoying the presence of God on earth, it is among the worst of all acts of presumption for you to expect to go to heaven. All whom God takes home to glory, He trains up for the enjoyment of it.” Asaph was being trained up in that way; his outlook on life could be summed up in his words: “Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory” (Ps 73:24). And God’s children turn these words into a desire. Helpless creatures that they are, they need the Lord to guide them through all the days they are to spend in this world and they most certainly need Him to take them safely on that last, momentous step which will bring them out of this life
and into heaven. Often do they send up such petitions at the throne of grace.
4. God’s glory. God’s children know that the glory of God in this world is bound up with obedience to His commands. Their desire is to do the will of their Father. He makes them willing to obey the call: “Son, go work to day in my vineyard” (Matt 21:28). Theirs is a life of service, whatever position they may, or may not, occupy in God’s kingdom in this world. They have been given talents and they are beginning to use them to God’s glory – including the talent of time. But others, even if they do not squander their talents in the ordinary affairs of life, never use them to the glory of God. And they never use them for the good of their souls. When challenged by the Most High, their reaction is: “I feared Thee, because Thou art an austere man: Thou tastest up that Thou layedst not down, and reapest that Thou didst not sow” (Luke 19:21). When the unbeliever feels in his conscience the force of God’s commands, he will lay the blame for his defects on God – alleging that He is unreasonable in what He demands. But the believer knows that the law is “holy and just and good”. He desires that God would be glorified in multitudes being made willing to obey that law.
Yet God’s children fully realise that merely outward obedience, however close it might come to the letter of the divine law, is not God-glorifying. So they desire such an outpouring of the Spirit as would bring large numbers of sinners everywhere to a saving knowledge of Christ. They would echo the prayer of the disciples: “That signs and wonders may be done by the name of Thy holy child Jesus” (Acts 4:30). There is no greater miracle, no greater display of the glory of God, than in the salvation of one sinner.
The desires of believers may be feeble in this world, and that is something to mourn over. But God’s children will grow in grace; their gracious desires will become stronger, including their desire for God to be glorified in this world. Indeed Archibald Alexander declared that “there is no surer standard of spiritual growth than a habit of aiming at the glory of God in everything”.
In conclusion, we may note that gracious desires are bound to be fulfilled, as far as it will be for God’s glory. All the believer’s desires are before Him, and He does not ignore them. David assures us that “He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him” (Ps 145:19). And Christ’s promise is: “If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it” (Jn 14:14), for, if prayer is to be heard, it must ascend to heaven in the name of Christ, the “one Mediator between God and men”. So at last, we can be perfectly sure, God’s children will all be brought into the realms of perfection in heaven – where all the imperfections of their desires will have been washed away. But let us examine our desires and let us ask ourselves if our desires are indeed those of God’s children.