I need to get to bed, but a quick comment before I dash. Our preacher this morning was preaching on making God’s desires OUR desires - not giving up desire. She gave an example of a gal that went on a short mission trip - and realized she had a passion for it. She dropped out of school to stay on and work with the kids in the area (Africa). That of course goes against the common idea of “greatness” of going to school, getting a good education, a good job, a nice home to live in, etc.
But she was saying how God wants you to be “great”, and have great ambitions, but to be great in the things that really matter.
This young gal was called to the mission field in Africa at the age of 18. She now runs an orphanage, feeds 1600 children each day, provides schooling and shelter. Six of the kids call her mom. She’s 24 now!
You wrote: “...Our preacher this morning was preaching on making God’s desires OUR desires - not giving up desire. ..”
More from my link in post #16:
“...First and foremost, you must live a life that is ruled by desire for what is permanent and transcendent: which is to say, a passion for the true, the good, and the beautiful. Extinguish this passion, and you will have killed man. Or, at the very least, man will drift in a kind of gravity- and friction-free existential space that some might confuse with “nirvana.” Yes, it is a kind of “liberation” — from the human being, properly so called.
Or as Joseph Campbell once said, participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.