What are you willing to do to get what you want?

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Just how far are you willing to go, just what are you willing to do, to get what you want?

Before responding to that, let’s deal with a problem related to that question, which is the desires we have.

The natural person — meaning, the “unsaved” or a person outside of a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ — “naturally” has more selfish than selfless desires. In fact, it’s our desires that lead us away from God and cause our greatest problems in life:

“And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, ‘God is tempting me.’ God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death,” James 1:13-15.

In 2016, David Brooks wrote in “The Road to Character” about how we were a culture that was radically increasing in not just selfish desires, but to a level of narcissism:

    Over the next few years I collected data to suggest that we have seen a broad shift from a culture of humility to the culture of what you might call the Big Me, from a culture that encouraged people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that encouraged people to see themselves as the center of the universe. It wasn’t hard to find such data. For example, between 1948 and 1954, psychologists asked more than 10,000 adolescents whether they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes.

    The same question was revisited in 1989, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent of boys and 77 percent of girls. Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to them. Statements such as “I like to be the center of attention … I show off if I get the chance because I am extraordinary … Somebody should write a biography about me.”

    The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago. The largest gains have been in the number of people who agree with the statements “I am an extraordinary person” and “I like to look at my body.”

Because we think so highly of ourselves, and want what we want, just what are people willing to do to get what they want?

The Bible reveals the answer to that about the Israelites after God had delivered them from hundreds or years of slavery in Egypt. But how God was providing for them didn’t measure up to their desires for what they wanted. Because of that, their attitude was they would rather return to slavery to have what they wanted rather than to follow God in a journey that didn’t fulfill their desires:

“Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron. ‘If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,’ they moaned. ‘There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death,'” Exodus 16:1-3.

Whenever you look back at what enslaved you as “the good old days,” you know your desires are horribly warped.

We’re not any different than the ancient Israelites; people today are willing to allow themselves to become enslaved (to alcohol, drugs, sex, politics, etc.) if they think the outcome will be to have what they want.

The great need isn’t a simple behavioral change, to turn from pursuing something that enslaves; the great need is a transformation of our desires.

That’s what God offers:

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him,” Philippians 2:13.

Before you answer the question of what YOU are willing to do to get what YOU want, first examine the desires you have. Are they selfish or narcissistic, or are they desires to do what pleases God?

Scotty