What do you want most?

A friend told me recently that he has been praying to want to want to do the right things more. 

He had noticed his desire to do good things was not as strong as he would like it to be, so he was wrestling with God to change, to have more desire to do and be good.

God has “given us a commandment that we must call upon Him, that from Him we may receive according to our desires.” Ether 3:2 

I think it is remarkable and beautiful that God wants to fill our desires. It shows His faith in us and our divine nature and potential as His children, that he believes in us. He believes in our ability to desire good despite the temptations that come through human nature. He believes our eternal spiritual natures will shine through. 

I have felt how much He wants to answer our prayers. He has answered many of my little requests– things that in the grand scheme mattered very little, but matter to me at that time. I have seen him answer the prayers of little children many times.

I think He asks us to bring our desires to Him so that He can fill His desire to bless us and show us how much He loves us. Eternal laws dictate that He is somewhat limited in His ability to bless us until we ask for it, because of His respect for our agency. We have a lot to learn about love, and He has a lot to show us. 

Another reason God gives this commandment to bring our desires to Him, is because it helps us desire and focus on good things. We do not typically bring evil desires to God intentionally, because we understand intrinsically that He is good. So if we are bringing our desires to God, we are searching out our best desires, which helps bring out the best in us.

Sometimes it helps us recognize or faced up to things that might need to be changed. It bring to light the things that we have been unconsciously pursuing, but our deeper self doesn’t really want.

In that case, we can pray, like the father who had faith but needed more: “Lord, I believe! Help Thou my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) We can say “Father in Heaven, I desire! Help Thou my lack of desire.”

Even if your desire is imperfect, believe in it and believe in Him, and it can grow!

Jesus would say to such a request, “All things are possible to them that believe.”

If you can only “exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for” more desire. Alma 32:27

This process can shape us over time, and we have to be patient with the process.

Jesus said “Blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

He said that we cannot serve two masters, and researchers have attested that our motivation center tends to be simple: one motive tends to crowd out other motives. (See Drive by Daniel Pink). So we should watch carefully our motive. Jesus also said what we focus our figurative eyes on tends to fill us with light, or not. His message was that getting our focus and our desires right right and stronger is a first order item to attend to.

Our desires are like setting concrete… eventually they define us and they stick. Ultimately who we become and what we can enjoy we will be shaped by our works, our efforts, and the desires of our hearts.

As I noted in a previous post, a war was waged to preserve our agency. Now it is one of our greatest assets. So let’s use it!

God loves us, and He intends to give us what we really want. I believe that with His help we can grow until our desire to do good and be good is as strong as we would like it to be.