My Fire, the One Desire
Some of you are going to laugh when you hear what I’m doing this week. Because for some reason, I have had a song by the Backstreet Boys on my mind for weeks, and I just can’t stop singing it. And this is unusual for me because I don’t listen to the Backstreet Boys, I never have. When I was at school, they were about the least cool thing you could ever admit to liking!
But for some reason, this song is jammed in my head lately, and even though the writers certainly didn’t mean it as a Christian song by any means, for me the words have been leading me to think about my relationship with God. Because the song starts with like this:
You are my fire, the one desire
Believe when I say, I want it that way
As these words have been looping through my mind time and again, I’ve found myself wondering: is God my fire? My one desire? And would God believe if I say that He is these things?
Stoke the Fire
The truth is, God should be your fire. Remember how John the Baptist told people that while he baptized with water, Jesus would baptize them with the Spirit and fire? And remember how Paul told Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God within him?
I asked myself, as I sang this silly little song: am I stoking the fire that God placed in my heart, the passion for Him, His glory, His fame, His love? I think sometimes our relationship with God becomes a formality rather than a fire, when we get familiar with church and the Bible and all that. And that’s tragic. Our love for God should be burning like a fire, and we should be stoking it so that it keeps burning brightly.
And is God my one desire, as the song says? One ministry that has blessed me deeply over the years is Pastor John Piper’s online ministry called Desiring God. His motto is this: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”. So when we desire God more than all others, that is when He is most glorified. I think that is so true.
Desire God Deeply
Now this doesn’t mean we can’t desire anything else. Of course, we all naturally desire various things, but is our great desire, above all and through all, to be in close relationship with God and to honour Him?
I want it that way in my life! I want to have a great fire for God burning in my soul, and a deep desire for Him defining my life. I pray that you, as a follower of Jesus, want it that way too.
