12 - 23 - 17 I Desire to Desire (the Good) (6 minutes)

“Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

But who will endure the day of his coming?
And who can stand when he appears?
For he is like the refiner's fire,
or like the fuller's lye.
He will sit refining and purifying silver,
and he will purify the sons of Levi,
Refining them like gold or like silver”

Do we really want what we say we want? We claim to want the coming of Jesus but how many of our vices do we still hold dear? How many things that are unacceptable in the Kingdom of God do we think of as essential in our lives?

Do you really desire the Kingdom to come today? I think, if we’re honest, most of us would have to answer no. We’re not ready! I certainly am not prepared.

There are many things about myself that are not in accordance with God’s will. But the bigger issue here is, I haven’t learned to hate them yet. I still treasure and cherish these things! It is like Augustine said, “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.” Make me humble but not yet because I thoroughly enjoy feeling important. Make me generous but not yet because my material possessions bring me great happiness. Just to clarify, happiness, not joy.

And it would be one thing to be wholeheartedly working to resolve these issues within ourselves but I think we see in many cases that deep down, we don’t desire to be reformed. We are comfortable in our wickedness, and we feel, rightly, that it is natural. Natural in that our base desires are animalistic, self-interested, and the result of an untended mind.

But to really gain any progress towards becoming worthy of the Kingdom we have to want it first! I honestly think that may be the more difficult task. Because once we truly and deeply desire a closer union with God we will unconsciously seize the opportunities that draw us closer. We will want to go to Mass. We will take joy in being generous. We do these things not relying on a triumph of will over tendency and inclination.

But this principle extends beyond faith, assuredly. People want to be fit, but to be fit it’s necessary to exercise. So really the only sustainable solution to is to learn to love exercising for its own sake. The parallel in faith would be that we should learn to love goodness for goodness’s sake, rather than the reward of Heaven.

If you want to be famous as a performer, or the best scientist, or whatever your dream may be, it is necessary to love the process. Not to tolerate the process, not to appreciate it. To really be successful at changing oneself you’ve got to grow so infatuated with what you’re doing that by the time you reach your goal you’re doing the work for its own sake, for the enjoyment you get from it.

Because if you reach a goal then stop working (in the case of self-improvement) you’ll quickly fall off that goal. If your goal is a certain state of being that state of being requires a certain status quo of action and habit.

How do we develop this love of process? How do we develop the love of doing good for the sake of doing good? Of exercising for the sake of exercising? That’s a loaded question. I don’t think I have a good answer for it, certainly not one that would work for everyone.

Also, we’re starting to step into an area more similar to behavioral psychology than philosophy or theology so in terms of practical advice there are tomes readily available to someone who is interested.

Let me go back for a moment to the initial question. So the initial problem was, we want to want the Kingdom {or whatever it is that we desire but has an “unpleasant” path (i.e. fitness , professional success)} but we find deep down we really don’t want it yet. We then talked about how we need to learn to love the process if we’re actually going to achieve it, but that’s the second or third step. First we need to actually want it.

The obvious question is, should we want it? Is it worth it?

Look at the rewards you can perceive you’ll gain from this pursuit, and then give careful consideration of the sacrifices you’ll have to make. If you’re naturally optimistic try to be extremely stingy about the perceived rewards and think of everything possible for the sacrifices. This should help stop optimists from overcommitting themselves. If you’re naturally a pessimist (or a realist as most pessimists like to say they are) go vice versa otherwise you’ll never pursue anything.

I went through this personally with Michigan Football. Over the summer I started really thinking about what I was getting out of this experience. How was this making my life better? I got to hang around some of the best athletes in the country. That would be enough for some people to stay. I didn’t really care about that.

I got a lot of free Jordan gear. Some people care about that. I won’t say I don’t, but not enough to warrant the sacrifices.

I got an enormous amount of prestige. But what do I want my prestige to result from? My personal actions, or membership in a group that doesn’t value me? Furthermore do I want my prestige to result from my professional and ministerial work, or my athletic ability? How do I want to be known? What do I want my signature talents and strengths to be?

Weighing the sacrifices.

The workouts were incredible. By incredible I mean incredibly challenging. To my pride I only puked once all summer (I didn’t eat a good breakfast before running stadiums at the Big House) but there were times I just laid on the floor of the locker room for a half hour after workouts. By late July of 2017 I was certainly in the best shape of my life.

Those grueling workouts would’ve turned a lot of people off. But I really didn’t even think of them as a sacrifice. I was getting in the best shape of my life without having to motivate myself at all.

The sacrifice that made football a bad deal for me was the time commitment. It wasn’t so much that Football didn’t have things to offer professionally and otherwise, but I just knew I could get so much farther on my own. Counting further the additional time I’d have to pursue ministry and my personal life, not to mention that Rugby is well, more fun, I actually had a pretty easy decision when I found out I didn’t make the 105 Fall Roster on July 31^st.

Just to clarify, I would’ve stayed on had I made that roster. I figured if I was that good I had a chance to play and it was worth it. But I really wasn’t very close to making it, probably didn’t help that I was playing fullback.

I hope this can serve as kind of a case study for the kind of cost-benefit analysis I’m talking about. If you can go through this and really convince yourself that you want something I think it’s a great first step to achieving it.

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Romans 7:19

"For the good that I desire, I do not do; but the evil that I do not want, this I practice."