Cultivating Desire (Part 1)

Due to length, this article will be divided into a series three consecutive posts.

It was a conversation that some might say shouldn't be happening on a Christian college campus. A fellow counseling major and I had decided to get lunch together in the cafeteria after class one day before heading back to our dorms to write papers for our Christian Marriage and Christian Parenting classes. We didn't expect to be there very long, but being counseling majors and sharing four out of five classes that semester, the conversation grew from what we had due the next day to how we thought we'd handle the hypothetical situation our teacher had presented us with that day.

"Well, you'd definitely want to present them with Scripture..." my classmate said, taking a bite of his buffalo wrap.

"Maybe for you," I replied. "I want to counsel in a secular setting, though. You can't just toss non-Christians who come to you for marriage counseling a few verses from Ephesians and expect them to accept it."

"Yeah. You're right about that. Well, if you can't give them Scripture, what would you say?"

"Well, I mean, I'm not saying you can't feed them the Word, but you can't just direct them to examine Ephesians 5 like you could a struggling Christian couple. I guess you'd just have to use wisdom to kind of weave biblical truths into your counsel."

"Yeah... You've gotta have a really good grasp on it yourself before you can do that. Kind of intimidating, isn't it?"

I hadn't really thought about it that much, but now that he'd mentioned it I had to agree. That was pretty intimidating. It shouldn't be, but it was. "Sort of," I admitted. "I feel like it shouldn't be, though."

"I don't know," my classmate said, picking at his buffalo wrap. "I guess I'm just thinking about how things have been in my life lately and it scares me to think that I'm going to be working in a field where I'll be having to give others advice."

"What's going on?" I asked. "I mean, do you wanna' talk about it or...?"

My friend just shrugged. "Yeah. I guess I've just been going through a spiritual dry spot lately. It's like I don't even want to pray or read my Bible these days." Looking down at his plate, he sighed. "Wow. Sounds really bad when you actually say it out loud. Not that's it's not bad, anyway. I don't know."

I could tell he was uncomfortable, now, which bothered me. Like I said, some people might say that people attending Bible college shouldn't have problems that -much less admit to be dealing with them. I don't know how I feel about that, though. We all struggle from time to time and ignoring problems or just pretending they aren't there doesn't do anything to solve them, but perhaps that's another post for another time. Anyway, I really didn't want my classmate to feel uncomfortable telling me this because I'd been in that exact same place myself only a month or so before, and it was hard. I knew.

"That's rough." I said, "but I understand."

"Do you?" he said, giving me an incredulous look.

"Uhh... Yeah. I've definitely been there. It's like doing your quiet time is more of a chore than anything else."

I could tell by his expression that what I'd said was on point. "Well, what did you about it?"

"Honestly? For a long time I just didn't do anything. I quit praying like I should and started slacking on my Bible reading. It didn't seem like a big deal at first. Just felt kind of like I was procrastinating or something, but after a while I got to feeling pretty miserable. It was so crazy. I mean, I missed my quiet time and all, but when it came to doing it I just didn't want to."

"Yeah. That's pretty much where I am right now."

"Well," I continued. "After a few weeks of all that, I just decided enough was enough and I needed to get it together. So, I did."

Now, I'm sure everyone who just read that line probably shook their heads at me and said something to the effect of "Sorry, but that's not how that works. You can't just 'get it together' with God." To an extent, I agree, but  just hear me out.

"Go on..." my classmate said, skepticism flooding his expression.

"I just started making myself get up in the morning to do my quiet time so I could start my day right and making myself put everything away at night to pray before I went to bed -whether I wanted to or not. It was pretty awful at first, but eventually I just got used to the routine and it wasn't such a bid deal anymore."

"So, your telling me that your quiet time went from being a chore to just being part of your daily routine that you just do every day because it's what you do?"

"No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that's what happened in the beginning. After a week or so of just doing it, got to a place where I started enjoying it. Eventually, I even started looking forward to my quiet time in the evening and missing it if I didn't get to do it in the morning. It all started with my making myself read, journal, and pray every single day... Basically, just getting it together."

"Huh. I don't know, though. I'd feel really weird just going through the motions like that. I mean, I don't think you should go before God if you're not going to be sincere about it."

"That's true," I said. "But wouldn't it make sense that even if you start out just 'going through the motions,' but do it with the sincere intent of getting back to where you need to be with God, He'll honor that?"

My classmate looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know... I guess I hadn't thought about it that way."

Here's the thing. I hadn't really thought about it that way, either. I'd considered what happened with me to be a trial and error kind of thing. What I'd just said to him had seemingly come out of nowhere.

"Yeah..." I said, lamely, unable to add anything else.

Part 2 of this series will be posted on Thursday, November 13th, but before I  further share my thoughts on the matter, I'd like to hear yours.