Quotes about Desire

Thomas Oord, in his Science of Love and elsewhere, defines or describes love as acting intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. I believe this to be one of the better efforts toward articulating agape love. Most importantly, it distinguishes love from desire, and locates it in the will, leaving room for desire and feeling to play an appropriate role in love without making them the heart of the matter. 

The intention points the way, and then habituated thought and desire must be redirected to support the intention in the moments of action.

An older Franciscan brother said to Brennan Manning on the day he joined the order, "Once you come to know the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem as beautiful or desirable.

"Do I really want this?" This question needs answering for the simple reason that if God is going to be with us, we should expect that our lives will be extremely different from ordinary human life.

Faith has two main parts: one is vision and one is desire, or will. Vision is seeing reality as it is, or in the case of the future, as it could be for us. Desire is wanting reality to be as it is, or as we hope it could be.

This "world" is marked by three spiritual dynamics that John identifies as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16).

Desire—wanting something that appears to be good for some purpose or pleasure.

Notice there are three things about the tree that caught Eve's attention. It was (1) good for food, (2) pleasant to the eyes, and (3) desirable to make one wise.

Wanting to look good to others is also a form of the desire of the eyes.

We can fail to know because we do not want to know - because what would be known would require us to believe and act in ways contrary to what we want.

Two main things that will block or hinder a life constantly interactive with God and healthy growth in the kingdom. These are the desire to have the approval of others, especially for being devout, and the desire to secure ourselves by means of material wealth.

And where people do not want to know God, he usually allows them to be without him—at least for a while. When desire conflicts with reality, sooner or later reality wins.