Goldfish have nasty bowels, but they remain
interesting
animals. Please bear with me. The DNA of a particular species may give it a predetermined biological drive to grow to relatively enormous size. But they seldom do, do they? This is because aside from feeding habits and genetic coding, goldfish seem to be guided by a sixth sense in their maturation and development. They can only grow proportionately to the size of their habitat. And yet their owners are constantly placing them in fish tanks that are too small for them, conditions that nature never intended; habitats that will limit them to subpar growth activity. I wonder if in their tiny fish brains, goldfish ever sense that they were meant to grow much more. I wonder if this frustrates them and that all their little puckering at the glass isn’t their way of cussing us out for this. Or perhaps they are resigned to their fate. Actually, I’m pretty sure goldfish don’t lead dramatic lives. Humans do though, or could if we didn’t let seeing have so much to do with believing.
Metaphorically at least, I hope to be puckering against the glass of my limitations until they get stuck and the hope of something bigger is all I see. I want to grow as nature intended to my full potential, and yet the realities of my habitat are completely adverse to this. My habitat very literally mocks this kind of longing and aside from external assistance this whole charade with myself must end in disappointment. Such is the danger of desire. Of this state of madness wherein humanity finds itself, author James Houston once commented: “Despair is the fate of the desiring soul.” Along these lines Proverbs 13:12 agrees saying, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick….” These are tough wages for maintaining high hopes, eh? It seems we’d might as well just keep small desires if we’re going to keep them, but to do this we have to numb ourselves to the greater treasures of our hearts. Western society provides a plethora of options for those who want to do this and one mustn’t have too much contact with the current expressions of church to see how Christians do. In our youth we experience deeply seated longings but with age we kill them and call it sanctification or end up doing something much worse and trade them in for the mimetic expression of consumer desire. Herein, we stroll the ambient lit corridors of the mall musing on J. Crew, and Anthropologie. Or we mull the glossy pages of Pottery Barn and various retail catalogues actually believing, “Wow. This is cool. Life is finally within my grasp.”
In these small desires we will never be the means by which anything great is ever done. William Wilberforce probably wouldn’t have ended the slave trade in Britain had he been solely absorbed with the color of his leggings or the latest trend in powdered wigs. Unfortunately, Christianity has fallen so far off its rocker that many Christians confuse these material desires with the real ones and muddle this all the more with their skill in manipulating religious garble. A large culture of believers now think it good to work and attain much materially, while regarding it is as ‘spiritual’ to be content with less in the other more important areas of our existence. To those few who dare to mention their hearts are still alive and healthy in the narrative of unfolding dream, we roll our eyes and immediately offer them advice on how they should go to college or get a job. I find myself guilty of this all the time, and all I’m really saying is “Grow up and be mature like me.”
Retrospectively I must laugh, because when I tell someone to “grow up” I don’t really know what I mean. I remember not too long ago someone was showing me their collection of “fruit-of-the-loom cowboy” pictures they had saved should they suddenly need to blackmail me. As you can believe, I was more than a little wierded out that such things existed, but I was well pleased with the shading around my firm two-pac abs and albino pectorals. Anyways, I guess what I’m getting at is that language has meaning, but somehow the meanings get twisted when they come out of my mouth. Therefore, when I say “grow up”- it’s an anomaly. I’m more than likely really saying ‘Please stay in a bubble where I can define you. Don’t scare me with your larger-than-life visions, because you’ll remind me of my own self-accepted limitations.’
C.S. Lewis says this much better than I can. Here he describes our reaction to the pain of meaningful desires so potently,
“I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you – the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence.”
This is so sad. We of humanity are something of the incarnation of Desire, but because of impatience and disappointment we choose to kill this or betray it by likening it to childish games and foolishness. How many have resigned themselves to apathy undefined by a meaningful thrust, while others chase their illusions in figure eights winding down to the darkness of addiction?
Jesus lamented aloud that he wondered whether he would really find faith on the earth when he returned (Luke 18:1-8), and I can think of at least one other scripture passage expressing God’s displeasure with small desires. In second Kings 13:10-20 we see King Jehoash crying bitterly as he considered the prospect of losing God’s protection with the coming of Elisha’s death. In the story the dying prophet secures the continued safety of Israel to a few simple symbolic steps in which God would respond proportionately. Jehoash claims he wants this, but then only follows through with these actions half-heartedly. Elisha becomes angry. He condemns the future of Israel for their leader’s small-minded desire and although by means of Elisha’s promise Israel would experience a few small victories over Aram, their enemies would live to oppress them in future generations.
I wonder who is missing out or being oppressed because of my lack of faith. With all the hope of Christ we have as children of this covenant of faith, I anticipate that believers should realize that they are doing the world a great disservice by living small. It is so crucial that we open ourselves to desire, embrace it and let it humble us, for any desire that is worthwhile will inevitably do so. I only need recall anytime attraction to the opposite sex made me do something embarrassing to see this. From these shoes and those experiences it seems real humility has very little to do with the nice, polite show we make it out to be. Instead it must be about taking what we have as far as we can and then realizing how short we come up and how much help we really need.
Thankfully, Christianity validates my desire in one other very important way: prayer. And so I pray. I hope you will too.
