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I love being an aunt. I could easily pass the entire day happily observing and playing with my adorable seventeen month old nephew. It amazes me how simple the life of a toddler is. Basically, from the second my nephew wakes up to the second his parents put him in his crib, his life revolves around his desires either being met or redirected. “Baba, baba,” he cries in the morning, making the sign for “food” with his little hands and eagerly anticipating a banana for breakfast. And most mornings, a banana is given to him. “Wa, wa,” he says when he wants to be let down to walk. Sometimes he is allowed to walk. Sometimes he is not; perhaps it is not safe for him to walk, or perhaps it is not the right time. If he is not, he must learn to trust his parents and to deal with this unmet desire. And so it will be throughout the rest of his life. 

The Proverbs have much to say about desires, both unfulfilled and fulfilled. Don’t tune me out here; take a minute to let these verses sink in. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” “A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools. “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” “The desire of the righteous ends only in good; the expectation of the wicked is wrath.” “She (wisdom) is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.” Notice in this last proverb that Solomon does not condemn desires. He does not say, “nothing you desire can compare with her, so take care that you don’t desire anything but wisdom.” He simply acknowledges that in comparison to wisdom, all other desires fade away.

Unfulfilled desires have been on my mind a lot lately. Men and women, like myself, who desire godly marriage but are still single. Ladies who desire children but are infertile. Young people who desire to serve God in specific ways but are prevented from doing so for whatever reason. I’m not talking about sinful desires; I’m referring to godly, good, God-given desires. What do you do with these desires? Prayer, you say? Yes, but how? How many times have you heard someone say, “I’ve had this desire for a long time, and I’ve finally come to the point where I’ve asked God to either fulfill the desire or take it away”? This may sound spiritual, but is it really the answer- giving God an ultimatum to either meet our desires or kill them? This prayer, I am convinced, reveals our deep-rooted legalistic tendencies to want to do, to fix, to solve, and to expect God to do the same.

My pastor said something a few weeks ago that made my ears perk up. He was preaching on James 1, about “trials of various kinds” in the believer’s life, and as he mentioned some of these possible trials, he included unfulfilled desires. We tend to think of trials in terms of what we have but do not want, rather than what we do not have but want. Solomon nailed it when he said that hope deferred, aka, unmet desires, makes the heart sick. If heartsickness is not a trial, then I don’t know what is.

I’m still figuring out what to do with unfulfilled desires, and how to counsel those who have them. In the past I’ve tended to squelch or ignore them, or try to pray them away, but more often than not, it simply doesn’t work. The desire remains, and I am left frustrated. Guilty. Disappointed. Tonight at church, when I should have been listening to the sermon, I couldn’t get this topic out of my head, and so I decided to jot some rough-draft notes down in the little green journal that I always keep in my purse for occasions such as these. Here are some conclusions that I have come to and that I am still working and wrestling through.
- Desires, when allowed to flourish in a gospel-centered way rather than being squelched, serve as a powerful metaphor of how much we need and should desire Christ. For example, Ps. 63:1- if David had always been given water when thirsty in a dry and weary land, he would never have been able to recognize and articulate that same void, that same desire, within his own heart for God.
- Is it biblical to give God an ultimatum either to fulfill the desire or take the desire away? Shouldn’t we be praying instead for the desire, as long as it is a good, biblical desire, to continue as long as it is needed to sanctify and conform us to Christ’s image and point us to our greater desire of Christ until we can say with the psalmist, “And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides (Heb., in comparison to) You”? Learn to live with desire. Learn to live with tension- it will draw you closer to Christ.
- We are to be stewards of the desires God gives us. Instead of pretending they are not there or wishing/praying them away, we should rejoice in them, as in all trials, and trust and pray for God to fulfill or rearrange them in His own perfect timing, trust that He knows, He understands, He is sovereign, He is sufficient.
- Often we equate strong desires with not trusting God enough or not being “spiritual” enough. Instead of feeling guilt, we should practice the spiritual discipline of waiting on the Lord.
- What do you do, then, with unfulfilled desires?

• You embrace the desire and pray for grace to honor Him through it.
• You praise God for the desire and entrust it to Him.
• You let the desire point you to your deeper desire for Christ.
• You pray boldly.
• You wait joyfully.
• You rest peacefully in God’s sovereign will.

My baby nephew’s desires ultimately point him to his need and desire for his loving parents who always have his best in mind. And so with us. Let us not waste our desires. Let us allow them to point us to the One who planted the desire deep within us, and who planted even deeper within us the need and desire for Him.

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