Desire

 We like to think that our generation invented everything from the wheel to the lightbulb to motivational sayings, ala Tony Robbins or Joel Osteen. How did the world survive before syrupy clichés about best lives and personal empowerment? The truth of it is that such purveyors of superficial musings have always been around, but with the advent of the internet, they’ve multiplied like mushroom pores after a warm spring rain.

It was actually Abraham Lincoln who was quoted as saying you can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be and do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose. If he’d added within reason, it likely would have taken away from the statement’s impact, but let’s face it, a midget will still be a midget, no matter how much he wants to be five feet. And with that, I’ve added the little people community to the growing list of groups I’ve offended.

Because some can’t accept that certain things are not possible given their intelligence, athletic ability, or body composition, they dive headfirst into the land of make-believe, pretending to be what they’re not and demanding everyone else feed their delusion as well. Sorry, you can’t be a Chihuahua, a porcupine, or a unicorn, because you’re human, and unicorns don’t exist.

The difference between man and God is that when God says you can attain something, it is not out of reach, imaginary, or unattainable. God’s not trying to play keep-away with His children, nor is He looking to make it difficult for them to receive what He promised.

Proverbs 2:3-6, “Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

It matters what you cry out for and what you lift up your voice for. It matters what you seek after as for a hidden treasure or as silver because you will find what you’re seeking after, and if you’re seeking after something fleeting and temporal, once you get it, you will discover the futility of it.

It’s not because discernment is not available to today’s church; it’s that today’s church isn’t crying out for discernment. We’re standing there like man babies yelling for money to come to us, but rarely a request for discernment or understanding. All we need is the dollar, dollar bills, and, if possible, without incorporating the sweat of our brow into the mix.

We’re raising a generation of spiritual cripples who are fully convinced they are marathon runners for Jesus. How do you think this will end? Between a full-scale global revival and a great falling away, because they were taught lies for so long that they’ve come to believe them to be the truth, I’d go with the falling away rather than the revival. Do I wish it weren’t so? Would I rather see a global revival? Yes, and yes, but then again, if wishes were horses, I’d have a whole stable.

We don’t need discernment as long as we have prosperity. That’s the clear message of today’s church, and those who crept in unnoticed are rubbing their hands and licking their lips because they’d thought it would be harder than this to deter people from seeking the truth.

If people are willing to trade eternity for baubles, if they’re willing to trade the life to come for a present life of ease, the enemy’s minions won’t have much difficulty in decimating today’s church. That’s the reality of it. It’s not pleasant, it’s not nice, it’s not cheery or optimistic, but oftentimes reality is none of those things. It just is what it is. 

What are you crying out for? Be honest with yourself. It’s just you and a screen, so you don’t have to pretend for anyone. What we seek, desire, and cry out for matters, as does the intensity with which we do it. Case and point, some people are so obsessed with who the antichrist is that they haven’t noticed how far they’ve strayed from Jesus. Their life is consumed with a name rather than The Name, which shows in their spiritual growth or lack thereof.

No passivity is implied in how we seek and search for understanding, knowledge, and discernment. We are to seek after them as we would a hidden treasure.

As I’ve mentioned on occasion, I wanted to be an archeologist when I was younger. I was also fascinated by people’s stories of perseverance when it came to treasure hunting. One that impressed me back then, and still impresses me to this day, is a man by the name of Mel Fisher. He’d heard a story of a sunken galleon off the Florida Keys when he was a child, and as an adult, he searched for it for sixteen years. When he finally found it, it turned out to be the largest underwater treasure found in history.

Imagine dedicating sixteen years of your life searching for something you could not know with certainty existed. It was just a story he’d heard as a child, after all. Why is it that we won’t dedicate an hour seeking after, desiring, and crying out for something that we know does exist because God assured us it is so?

It’s not God’s hand that’s short, nor is God hard of hearing. We’re not asking. We’re not searching. We’re not pressing in. If we don’t acknowledge that understanding, discernment, and knowledge are treasures, even if God were to bestow them upon us without our asking, we wouldn’t value them as we ought, thinking them irrelevant and of little value.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.