Want is a Wounded Place
By Megan Johnson
A woman I barely knew leaned forward, tears gathering on her face. She paused as though her words had been locked away for far too long. Then, in a hushed whisper she said, “I’m afraid to ask God for what I want in case I don’t get it. Or, even worse, He doesn’t want to give it to me.”
I sat in stunned silence. How do you respond to someone voicing the very fears you’ve harbored and never had the courage to speak out loud?
A few days later, another friend left me a shaky voicemail:“This is too good to be true. It must be the enemy trying to tempt me.” Then, in my small group, a voice trembled: “I’ve asked for this for years, but He’s never given it to me. So why keep wanting it?”
Stating what we desire is often uncharted territory for the good Christian girl.
The brave ones give voice to why it feels so dangerous to state them in trusted circles:
- “I’m afraid of what God has for me.”
- “Want is a luxury I can’t afford and don’t deserve.”
- “This seems tailor-made for me, so why am I so scared it won’t happen?”
Why is it so common for Christians to tiptoe around their heart’s desires, as if they were perilous landmines?
In praying and listening, I began to realize that many of us have built walls around the deepest desires of our hearts. And the higher the wall, the deeper the longing.. Our desires may look different from one another’s, but the moat around our hearts often protects against the same thing: it hurts too much to hope.
Many faithful women run the risk of becoming an army of devoted, desire-less Christians, showing brave faces to Jesus while hiding their truest longings from Him. But to be only partially known is not the promise of Scripture.
“You know me inside, and out,
You know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, How I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, You watched me grow from conception to birth; All the stages of my life were spread out before You, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.”
Psalm 139:14-16 MSG
The Silent Struggle: Why Voicing Our Wants Feels so Dangerous
We’re an open book that God loves to read. So why do we wall off our wants in His presence when He already knows them?
If we’re being honest, it’s because our desires—our wants—are often deeply wounded places.
If we were to speak of them, we might blush several shades of shame. Some of us have been told they’re dangerous. Others of us have seen them run amok or turn inward, bending toward a person we don’t want to be. For fear of sinning, we’re scared that we can’t be trusted with something as lovely as longing.
This makes sense. In Christian culture, longing is often stigmatized. If we feel like something is lacking, it must mean we’re wanting the wrong things. The Psalmist writes, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I lack nothing.” The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I see this verse not as a declaration of total contentment, but as an invitation to befriend the desires I’ve long told myself are at odds with my satisfaction in Christ.
Desires as Divine Beacons: Finding God in Our Longings
What if our desires aren’t a threat to our contentment, but rather homing beacons pointing us toward a deeper, eternal hunger—a hunger that is not to be ignored or hidden in shame, but to be explored in the Presence of God?
The Bible speaks of sacrifice, to be sure, but what about satisfaction? Scripture calls us to deny ourselves, absolutely. But delighting in His goodness is just as important.
We are all born with naked needs, but we are so much more than our needs. Strahan Coleman writes, “Why not pause for a moment to sit with the gravity of this? You were made from, and for, desire. You are not an accidental child, a servant, or even a subject. You’re the object of God’s impenetrable affections, made to be enjoyed and to enjoy Him forever. Created to drink deeply of His presence. Long before any fall or disorder, this was the gospel.”
Maybe, just maybe, God wants to awaken you to the beauty of the new heart He’s given you and invite you to explore the depths of your desires—beyond the wants that leave you wanting, into a world of delights that satisfy the truest version of you.
“We have a checkered history with prayer: unmet expectations, unanswered requests. We can barely bend our knees for the scar tissue on them. God, to some, is the ultimate heartbreaker. Why keep tossing the coins of our longings into a silent pool?…Oh, the peculiar puzzle of prayer!”
– Max Lucado –
Reflection
To be satisfied in Christ requires the risk of being let down by lesser loves, the willingness to be surprised by the better thing, and the courage to surrender the parts of our stories that never seem to live up to our expectations. However, what if the loving peculiarity of prayer doesn’t ask us to resign our desires, but to align them? What if the adventure of a Christ-centered life is found by mining the depths of our longing, one coin toss at a time? What if the wounded heart is the very place through which God invites each of us to be truly satisfied?
What if…
I believe that would be very good news, and friend, it is.
Take some time this week to journal and reflect over what it might look like for you to bring your deepest desires and longings to the feet of Jesus and to trust that He will steward them well.
Author Recommendations:
Want to delve further into this conversation about finding satisfaction in God and realigning our desires to His? Below is a list of recommended books from Megan for further reflection and learning.
- Thirsting: Quenching our Soul’s Deepest Desire by Strahan Coleman
- A Shepherd’s Look at Psalm 23 by W. Phillip Keller
- You are What You Love by James K.A. Smith
- The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner
Thank you so much for this message as the Lord knows All yet we ARE Afraid to share.