Stop Drinking Sand.

Tonight at Breakaway Ben Stuart was talking about the role that emotions play in being a Christian and he asked two very important questions: 1 Where do you go to try and fill your desires? 2 What do you do with your desires?

Before I get to the answers there were some very interesting quotes that he shared:

"Sin can be defined as fulfilling a legitimate desire in an illegitimate way or at an illegitimate time" --Oswald Chambers

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
— C.S. Lewis

"Christian duty is to aim your desires at God" --John Piper (modified)

Often are desires are misplaces, and just as often they are too weak. Its kind of ironic to think about, because we constantly feel like we can't control out emotions and desires and think that is a bad thing....and it is if our desires are not directed at God.
So what do we do?
How are we supposed to respond to our weak and misplaced desires?
I think the story about the lady at the well is clear:

John 4:7-15

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
⁹ Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
¹¹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? ¹² Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
¹⁵ The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

We are called to turn to God to meet our desires. He is the living water, the only thing that can satisfy our thirst, our desires, our longing.

The woman's response was one we are supposed to follow, ask Him for the water, for the fulfillment of our desires. Not only will He fill our desires, but give us deeper ones for Him.

God commands us to love Him with all our heart (Luke 10:27)

We gain our life by putting down the things we think we desire, and turn to the real source of our true desires. (Matt 16:25)

We give up everything we hold dear, our earthly desires, to gain true treasure and joy, love, and passion in Christ (Matt 13:44-46)

We are called to turn away from everything other than the Lord.

Not only that but we are called to rejoice and be glad, to wept for the Lord. To have emotional responses in light of who He is.

This is why our hearts throb at the sight of a sunset, or a newborn baby, and the glorious creations of God. Mere reflections move us, so being in the presence and having a relationship with the Lord should move us all the more!

So we are called to stop turning to other things to try and satisfy us. Stop turning broken cisterns when the fountain of life is right there for you to partake in.

Stop drinking sand and go to the fountain of living water...and drink deeply.