What do I think About?

There is a blog I love. It is called The Beggars Daughter. This woman has come out to the world that she struggled with pornography, and blogs her learning and overcoming. She has a very close relationship to the Savior, and a very real knowledge of His forgiveness.

I read this post, and I love it.

What Your Thought Life Reveals About Your Heart

It was another lazy afternoon, and while most people snuggle down with a good book, I just like to snuggle down and think.  Call me weird, but thinking is how I de-stress.  It is how I process life.  Everything gets a thorough think-through and then filed away where it belongs.  This particular afternoon, I started thinking, and I started thinking about my wedding.

An hour later, I was still thinking about my wedding- not the wedding night, the wedding.  No sex, nothing impure, just daydreaming about my dress, the decor, and the food.  After I snapped myself out of my little fairy tale I started to think about how I had even gotten to that place (told you, I think alot).  It wasn’t necessarily a bad place, a waste of time maybe, but no sin in imagining what my wedding might be like.  Still, I realized that my thought life was giving me key insight into me.

My thought life was revealing the desires of my heart.

Sometimes, we don’t get lost in a world of sexual lust, we just get lost in a world of desire.  Desire is not wrong.  I can desire chocolate cake.  I can desire justice.  I can desire mercy.  I can desire love.  I can desire sex.  The act of desiring is not wrong.  What we need to be mindful of is what we desire, how, and why we desire it (and perhaps how often we get lost in our desire for it).

Is it OK to imagine something?  My answer is yes.  Our imagination is part of God-given creativity.  Again, the question to ask is what, how and why we are desiring it.  Sometimes we desire a particular thing (for instance, sex) or we desire to get away from something else (anything but homework).  Unpacking the motivation behind our desires can be complicated, but I think it is an important window into our healing.

What Do I Desire?

There really aren’t many bad things for us to desire.  Sex isn’t even a bad thing for us to desire.  There is nothing wrong with having sexual desires, and nothing wrong with being a woman who has sexual desires.  So, aside from illegal activities, or obvious “bad things” – like doing drugs, having sex with a married man, desiring to hurt someone, or kill something, there really aren’t many things that are bad to desire in and of themselves.  The trouble comes when we dwell on those desires, act on some of those desires, or in our motivation of those desires.

How Deeply Do I Desire It?

If I can spend an hour daydreaming about my wedding, I might need to rethink my heart priorities. It is not wrong for me to desire marriage.  Marriage is a good and honorable thing.  If, however, it is a consuming thought in my life, then it drifts into idol territory.

Sex can be an idol.  Marriage can be an idol.  Fame can be an idol.  Success can be an idol.  Power can be an idol.  Love can be an idol.  Money can be an idol.  People can be idols.  

Are any of those things bad in and of themselves?  No.  What makes them dangerous and idolatrous is how deeply I desire them.  

If I repeatedly come back to the same theme over and over again in my thought life, that would be a good indication of an idol.  Here’s a good question to ask yourself in that moment when you are thinking of your heart’s desire.

If God never gave you {________} would you still love Him?

If the answer is yes, then do you truly trust Him with it?  That brings us to why.

Why Do You Desire It?

In most cases our desires can be good and God-given.  It is good to desire marriage.  It is good to desire justice.  There is nothing wrong with desiring chocolate cake.  This question is all about motives.  What draws you into that desire?

What happens in your life that causes you to retreat to your thought life.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking, planning, or even daydreaming, but do you a notice a pattern in what makes you go there?

I find so often, in my life, my moments of wandering mind come from being discontent.  It comes from a lack of trust in His will and in His timing.  I believe He is good, sovereign, and just, but I question His judgment when it comes to certain things.  That’s not a good place to be, and that is a heart issue that needs to be remedied.

I have found that I can say “Yes, I would still love God even if He never gave me {____}” but when it comes to trusting Him with that choice, the answer is no.

Be willing to be honest with yourself in those moments.  Is this thing you desire good?  Is your desire under His control?  Do you trust Him?  The answers will give you great insight into your heart and how much you have grown in your journey of freedom.

My Thoughts: This is beautiful. My relationship with God must be my number one priority. Establishing that relationship will teach me that to have the attitude: I will love God no matter what he does or doesn't give me. I believe when we draw near to God, other things cease to be important. Celestial marriage is important, but will cease to be important if I my testimony and love is not based on the Lord. Thy will be done.

I believe we all have idols that don't seem like idols. For us girls, it definitely can be the thought of getting married. It can be pinterest, or couponing. It can be buying clothing. Whatever thing that we think about more than we think about our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ is idol. I think about boys and coupons and my future children A LOT. I know that I need to work on redirecting my focus. We all do. And it is a process. The Lord is more patient than we know and can currently comprehend.