Last Wednesday about 25 girls crowded into our Northwestern women’s ministry house (“Wilder”) for our freshman girls’ movie bible study. After visiting and snacking, we watched a couple clips from Disney movies–Ariel singing “I want more” and Belle lamenting her provincial life. We talked about how those themes resonated with us even as little girls because of our endless cravings. No matter how much it seems like we have going for us, it never hits the spot. God designed us with desires so that he could satisfy them, but we look elsewhere and love ourself or other things more than God…sin worthy of death. We looked at John 4 where Jesus engaged the woman at the well and saw how Jesus answers our desire problem: not only has he been perfect in this way for us so we don’t have to experience God’s wrath, but he also promises that all our desires ultimately can be met in him.
After working on the study, I realized that often in ministry when my good desires are unmet they reveal deeper desire-dysfunction in my own heart. A freshman isn’t able to go on a retreat, one of the girls in my group just doesn’t seem to get it, or a key conversation didn’t go the way I had hoped. I immediately get frustrated because I want them to know Jesus more and grow as kingdom laborers, and I think that because fill-in-the-blank didn’t happen, they’ll come short of that goal. If I’m honest with myself though, I’ll realize that that doesn’t make sense. If I really believe that God is going to complete the work he started in them (Phil. 1:6), that he’s way more committed to them than I am (John 10), and that he can use everything (even sin!) for their good (Rom. 8:28), then I don’t need to get worried or anxious over what I interpret as set-backs. So at the bottom of my frustration I realize that there are other desires lurking–I think I need accomplishment, influence in someone’s life, recognition, etc. But John 4 makes it clear that it’s dangerous to try to satisfy those cravings with ministry…or anything else. Like the woman at the well, I need to repent and find my soul stilled and thirst quenched and in Jesus Christ, the fountain of living water.
Follow us on Twitter