Tag: feelings

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Wantings

Is the particular condition (common to all humans) that we call desire, a good thing or a bad thing? We might go with a, “Well, it depends. . .”

We haven’t needed to experience much time on the planet to be able to confess – most of us with plenty of regret – that we have made some stinky messes along the way. By casually or carelessly giving in to desire (feelings). As John Piper puts it, “We should not be surprised or thrown off balance when we meet in ourselves, some really excessive and distorted bodily desires.”*

Piper went on to reference several disordered behaviors. . . gluttony, fornication, homosexual practices. To that list we can readily add gossip, lying, contemptuous speech (think political rhetoric either side of the aisle). The parade of missteps is longer than we would like to think. Help!

The good news is that help does come, to those earnestly looking for it. Seek and you will find, promises the Carpenter-turned-Rabi.

Part of the good news is that not all desires are bad. Indeed, most all the enslaving appetites that pollute and wreck human lives are actually “hijacked”, then distorted, versions of the real thing. Our best selves as humans bearing the marvelous image of God is what we are actually to grow into.

I really like food.

Foods and beverages come to us in all their wondrous forms and flavors. I indulge them largely out of a stirred-up appetite. Nasal sensors catch an aroma. Taste buds come alive to the mere thought of a delicacy. The stomach might be heard to growl. Maybe your own salivary glands are bearing witness to the phenomenon now!  Into this scene at an inconvenient juncture,  someone then inserts a useful, though uncomfortable question,

“Do we eat to live, or do we live to eat?”

Certainly, the lovely assortment of our most fundamental desires has made its way to our interior selves due to a very good design at the hand of a very good God. The measure that we are attentive and “lean into” our maker’s wisdom – drawing on his goodness, power and favor – may determine for us the difference between having a good, or a not-so-good (even tragic) pilgrimage here.

©2025 Jerry Lout                                                          *John Piper, Desiring God

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Attentive

It wasn’t Bill’s fault. They decided and that was that. They deprived him any say – no decision-making leverage – no voicing an opinion. Not that it would have mattered. They were the farmers. Bill was the horse.

To him it probably seemed unfair. Bill didn’t sign up to entertain adolescent boys, have their spurs gouge his ribs at will, yank the bridle this way and that till the bit bruised his mouth. Who turns teenage boys loose to traumatize a stallion – not to mention a fifteen-year-old gelding?

Such injustice may have prompted the biting assault to my side one Fall day.

Neither my brother Tim nor I – nor our Dad for that matter – were schooled in proper horse care. Still, we weren’t mean to Bill. Not on purpose.

Added to other abuses, the reckless cinching of a saddle strap can be especially annoying evidently, to a horse.

He was a tall animal and at first stood passive as I brought the saddle upward along his left side. Landing it atop the protective wool blanket I reached beneath and across Bill’s mid-section for the strap. Bringing it my way I threaded it through the cinch ring. I then undertook the most demanding task in preparing for an afternoon ride. Apart from catching the horse in the first place.

Tugging the girth strap I scolded Bill under my breath. Stop bloating your belly, horse! Horses will often distend their belly when the saddle is tightened, likely to reduce discomfort. However, a loosened saddle is the result once an animal relaxes their breathing again. In the worse instance this can endanger a rider. Putting my hundred twenty pounds into it I yanked the strap upward. That is when Bill’s head swung around. And his great teeth struck a fierce bite.

DANG, Bill! Dang it!

 I leapt, swung at him and grabbed my side all at once. DUMB Bill. Bad horse!

The shock and sting let up after a minute. I lifted my shirt. An orange-red hue marked the area along his teeth marks. Thankfully the skin didn’t break.  Dumb Bill.

Drawing a parallel on human behavior in some relationships seems natural.  As in child-raising.

Parents will, at times, apply excessive pressure on a child to conform.  Discerning what helps both the child and their parents needs time and consideration. Patience and wisdom. Often, prayer.

In time I learned how to reduce excessive pressure to a horse – and teeth marks to my side.  Spacing the cinch-tightenings with short walks between can relieve tensions and settle the matter agreeably for both horse and rider.

And being attentive. Not so hard a thing to do, but being attentive must be done on purpose. Noting body language, feelings, considering the persons point of view.

After the barnyard misunderstanding I always saddled Bill attentively. One eye toward the girth strap, the other toward his head. I found that, with practice, it can be done.

©2015 Jerry Lout.