“What is desired in a man is steadfast love…”
-Proverbs 19:22
“The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm.”
-Proverbs 19:23
“Many a man will proclaim his own steadfast love…”
– Proverbs 20:6
“Desire without knowledge is not good…”
– Proverbs 19:2
We are made in the image of the God who is infinitely wise, creative, love, justice, compassion, wrath, joy, gladness, steadfast and patient. These are but a few characteristics that in their perfection I cannot grasp. I can only understand them in the broken and flawed version through my humanity that rubs against the humanity of others. I can know and understand wisdom because of the wisdom gleaned from older wiser women in my life, however it is still flawed. It is not the perfect wisdom my heart longs for through the One whose essence is wisdom. I can only know and understand creativity through my friend who is a brilliant artist and paints beautifully with metaphors to attach to each picture, however her creativity is still flawed. It is not the perfect creativity my heart longs to experience through the One whose essence is creativity and whose creativity formed my frame before I was even a thought. I can know and understand love through the enduring love of my husband who has faithfully covenanted himself to me and has actually lived that out in our marriage. However, his love falls short. It is flawed. It is not the perfectly steadfast love that the depths of my soul longs for in the One whose essence is steadfast love.
At the core of who we are as women, the human woman and the spiritual woman, is the desire to be loved. Steadfastly. Satisfyingly. We long to experience true life because of this steadfast and satisfying love. So how do we experience this? As humans we have two options: isolation from God, or intimacy with God.
“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgement.”
-Proverbs 18:1
Isolation from God is nothing new. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, showed us that when we let sin come into our lives through our own willful disobedience by exchanging the truth about God for a lie, then we realize our nakedness and we become ashamed. Therefore, we run. We isolate ourselves and try to cover ourselves with our own fig leaves. We hide from the One who formed and fashioned us and gave us the truth about Himself and about the world in which we live. Our desires are left to the inhibitions of our sinful nature when we isolate ourselves from God. We will try to proclaim our own steadfast love, our own kind of steadfast love, our own uninhibited lusts of the flesh and lust of the eyes and pride of life. These destroy us. FAST.
Intimacy with God draws us near to Him. Though we live in a sinful world where we are still fighting the lies of the enemy, we are given precious ways to experience the satisfaction of God’s perfect steadfast love that we long for so deeply: prayer, Scripture, fasting, confession, repentance, covenant community with other believers, experiencing Him through creation, and even music. In all of these ways we experience the satisfying steadfast love we long for, we are growing in our knowledge and holy fear of our Savior. “Desire without knowledge is no good.” (Proverbs 19:2) Without the knowledge of who our God is as revealed in Scripture, prayer, confession, and all the other sweet ways we experience Him, our desires are left to the fleshly lusts and pride it wants. We have to renew these desires with the knowledge of Him. How faithful, how gracious, how kind He is to give us all these ways to grow in our knowledge of the One who satisfies and meets every desire we could ever have. All God’s promises find their “YES” in Christ.
WHAT I KNOW BECOMES WHAT I BELIEVE… WHAT I BELIEVE BECOMES MY BEHAVIORS.
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