Redemption Groups: Dealing with Desire

One current Redemption Group participant will be blogging their experience through this round of Redemption Groups.If you are reading this and have a sense of déjà vu, it’s because my recap from last week centered heavily on this week’s lesson: desire. When I sat down to read the assigned chapter I was taken aback that it directly spoke to the desires I confronted last week. This week the lesson truly hit home.Pastor Jim set the scene by reading from Exodus 16. Imagine the Israelites depart Egypt and are travelling toward their destiny and deliverance. But this deliverance, this exodus, is not what they dreamed. Instead of a land of overflowing bread and all their earthly desires, they are led into the wilderness of sin. They grumble to Moses and Aaron:“Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:3).They grumble. They grumble for food. The Israelites, much like myself, had this vision for what their lives would look like after they were freed from slavery. It wasn’t wandering in the desert with no food, so they grumbled.We all desire good, earthly things. There is nothing innately wrong with desires like marriage, professional success, family or normalcy. However, when these desires are seemingly unmet, they have the potential to work themselves deeper and deeper into our hearts. It is our sinful response to our unmet desires, or how we grumble, that reveals what our hearts say about God. We respond in one of three ways: anger, anxiety or escape. Anger is the attitude of frustration, harshness, entitlement, impatience, or even defensiveness. Anxiety manifests itself as hypersensitivity, worrying, extreme caution and perfectionism. Escape seduces us to lose ourselves in fantasies, drugs, sex, alcohol or the daydreams of our hearts. Each of these responses is our way of telling God He has not met our expectations. We sit agitated that our desires have gone unanswered instead of feeling peaceful that God has heard our cries.Our group was quiet Tuesday evening as we gathered and began to delve into how we grumble against God. We all wanted to know why. Why does He place these desires in our hearts to go seemingly answered? What if they are not answered in this lifetime? The Lord promises to give us the desires of our hearts, but we often forget that our own mindset plays a vital role in bringing these desires to fruition. Like Pastor Jim said, we respond to God with anger, anxiety or escape, not trust.The longer I sat and listened to the others speak I realized we were all still grumbling. Perhaps not intentionally, but each one of us was still trying to grasp hold of the controls of our lives instead of letting Him steer our ship. We must rejoice in God and desire to walk in obedience. The Lord must be first in our lives before we can grab ahold of His promises.Someone asked me how Redemption Groups were going after this week, and I answered: good;  long, but good. Allowing God to change any aspect of your ambitions is a long process. But it’s good knowing that even when He doesn't answer our prayers or grant every desire, He has a reason. I know a merciful, all-knowing, kind and generous Father. I trust Him with my hopes and dreams and have learned to rest in Him. Resting is not giving up. Resting is trusting Him to answer my prayers in His timing. I have come to find a peace in waiting upon the Lord.