Scripture says, “[God] will point them to the best way.... The LORD tells his secrets to those who respect him” (Ps. 25:12, 14 NCV). As we walk with God, He will reveal to us His secret about our created design and His intention for us, for our path. But how? Where?
What you were created to do is revealed in the form of your desires. As we’ve already seen, “It is God who is producing in you both the desire and the ability to do what pleases him” (Phil. 2:13 ISV). You see, the really great news is that what you are supposed to do is what you most want to do! I may need to repeat that: What you are supposed to do is what you most want to do! Or as Os Guinness wrote, “Instead of, ‘You are what you do,’ calling says: ‘Do what you are.’”
I realize this may sound foreign and dangerous, maybe even blas- phemous to you. The church doesn’t talk much about desire, at least not in a positive way. After all, people have done some pretty stupid, selfish, and harmful things all in the name of desire. Much of the talk around the subject of calling tends to center around need and obliga- tion and naturally heads in the direction of duty. But we are to live out of desire, not duty. As C. S. Lewis noted, “A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty; he’d always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people), like a crutch that is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times: but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits, etc.) can do the journey on their own!”4 We are invited to live out of desire, but desire is often messy and hard to understand. I will say much more about this in the chapters to come, but for now it is critical to know that God has and will continue to tell you what you are here to do through your desires.
