“This is a battle. It’s all going to come down to who wants it more.”
Have you ever heard a commentator say something like that during a sporting competition of some sort? Boxing, MMA, football, rugby, hockey – you name the sport and the victor is often the one who wants it more.
I recently read an article about Mario Andretti in Success magazine. He talked about a key component of his success being his desire. The article said, “Andretti doesn’t want to hear excuses for not pursuing your passions, either. He meets guys all the time who tell him they also could have been race drivers but their wives wouldn’t let them or some other excuse. Nonsense, Andretti says: ‘They didn’t really want it.’”
You really find out how much you want something when it starts to get difficult. When things get tough men of character dig deeper and keep moving forward to push through the difficulty. We’ve all heard the old adage, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
It’s during difficulty that we really find out how much we want something. As Andretti suggests, quitters really didn’t want it badly enough. It’s easy in that moment to try to shift the blame to someone or something else. We can convince ourselves that the reason we quit something was for a variety of reasons, none of which was our lack of desire.
Recently a good friend sent me a text that had this phrase in it,
“Pursuit is proof of desire.”
For some reason it leapt off my phone at me. Such a simple, yet profound phrase. In other words, if we want something we will pursue it. Period. If we are not pursuing it, then we really don’t want it.
This has profound implications to our walk with Jesus.
If you say you want to be free from some bad habits, then what are you doing about it? How are you pursuing holiness? If you say you want to have more faith, what are you doing about it? If you say you want a better relationship with your wife, what are you doing about it? If you say you want to know God more, what are you doing about it?
If you want it, do something about it! Like my father used to tell me, “You have to take the bull by the horns son!” In other words, you have to be bold and do something about it if you want anything to change.
I remember hearing a testimony from a man who wanted to quit smoking. He had tried many different programs, but nothing seemed to work. When he was praying about it one day, telling the Lord how much he wanted to quit and whining about how hard it was, he felt the Lord say something that rattled him.
“No you don’t”
What do you mean?
“You don’t want to quit – you like smoking.”
The Lord helped him realize the truth was that he really didn’t want to quit smoking. He liked smoking. He really enjoyed it. When he finally got honest with the Lord about his true desire, the Lord met him there.
He was then able to quit smoking, because the Lord changed his heart – his desire – in regard to smoking.
Sadly many Christians are content to coast in their spiritual lives. I don’t believe that is pleasing to God. We are encouraged to “work out our salvation”, to put some effort into getting hold of the redeemed life the Lord purchased for us through His death and resurrection. The effort is not trying to please God with our good works, it’s our act of loving worship to the one who invites us to be holy as He is holy.
Pursue the Lord wholeheartedly. Press on to lay hold of all He has for you and for others through you. And, if you don’t want it, repent from complacency and ask Him to change your heart. There are 2 pedals to this bike: personal responsibility and divine sovereignty.
He deserves our best effort, and He will change our hearts in the process.
Pursuit is proof of desire.
Philippians 3:12-14
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
1 Timothy 4:7b-8
“…train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”
Hebrews 12:11
“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”