Battling A Destructive Desire

Shared by a Group Participant from “Every Moment Holy”

“Jesus, here I am again, desiring a thing that were I to indulge in it would war against my own heart, and in the hearts of those I love.

O Christ, rather let my life be thine! Take my desires. Let them be subsumed in still greater desire for you, until there remains no room for these lesser cravings.

In this moment I might choose to indulge a fleeting hunger, or I might choose to love you more.

Faced with this temptation, I would rather choose you, Jesus—but I am weak. So be my strength. I am shadowed. Be my light. I am selfish. Unmake me now, and refashion my desires according to the better designs of your love.

Given the choice of shame or glory, let me choose glory. Given the choice of this moment or eternity, let me choose in this moment what is eternal. Given the choice of this easy pleasure, or the harder road of the cross, give me grace to choose to follow you, knowing that there is nowhere apart from your presence where I might find the peace I long for, no lasting satisfaction apart from your reclamation of my heart.

Let me build, then, my King, a beautiful thing by long obedience, by the steady progression of small choices that laid end to end will become like the stones of a pleasing path stretching to eternity and unto your welcoming arms and unto the sound of your voice pronouncing the judgment:

Well done.”