Desires. Imagine for a moment that you could have anything you desire. What would you choose? Would you be willing to do anything to get it? If not, consider the possibility that you don’t actually want what you say you want. If there is anything you aren’t willing to do, then not doing the thing you aren’t wanting to do is what you really want, not the outcome you say you desire.
Perhaps you dismiss the possibility that what you most desire will require experiencing what you least desire. Maybe it’s not so unlikely. After all, your understanding of cause and effect is seriously limited compared to God’s. Furthermore, we claim to believe in a God that requires the sacrifice of all things. That especially includes the thing you least want to sacrifice.
You can have anything you desire. Or rather, you receive the outcomes of all paths you traverse: “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” (Matthew 7:8)
4 ...I know that <u>[God] granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he</u> allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.
5 Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but <u>he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires,</u> whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience. (Alma 29)
Why is it necessary to know the difference between good and evil in order to receive according to your desire? Because “good” things are those which lead to better outcomes and “evil” things are what lead to anything else.
When you have the capability of discerning what benefits and what does not, you become responsible for the outcomes you receive. You are “given according to [your] desires.”
Wishes vs. desires. We get sloppy when it comes to differentiating between desires and wishes. You wish when you say you want something while being unwilling to do what it takes to get it. Desire, on the other hand, requires doing what it takes to obtain a certain outcome.
Saying you want an outcome is not the same as actually desiring it. For example, many people say they want to go to heaven, but do any of them live after the manner of heaven? How many actually keep God’s laws without deviation—a requirement to live in his kingdom?
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
Wishes require the severing of the link between cause and effect. You will never experience anything that doesn’t have a cause, and you will never permanently obtain anything for which the price has not been paid. Fulfillment of desires requires finding the set of causes that produce the desired effect.
Temptations vs. desires. The Lord has instructed us over and over to ask him for what we need, promising that he will give it to us:
And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive - and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive. (Alma 7:23)
7 Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
8 For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (3 Nephi 14)
In spite of these and many other injunctions to ask for what we desire, most Christians tend to try to suppress their desires. They misunderstand scriptures such as “...bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love...” (Alma 38:12)
To bridle one’s passions is not the same as to quench them! To bridle means to steer:
For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body: Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. (James 3:2)
While God has commanded us to bridle our passions, he never told us that desires are bad. In fact, the scriptures suggest that passions are absolutely necessary to provide us motivation and endurance as we seek to fulfill our desires.
It is not in our desires that we sin, but in the means we incorrectly choose for fulfilling them. Temptation is not about what you desire, but rather describes a non-effectual path to that desire. For example, someone experiencing same-sex attraction may believe that their happiness lies in a homosexual relationship. If indulged, they will, in time, find that what they sought in a homosexual relationship was not to be found there. All good things come from God, and enduring good things can’t be found outside of the paths he provides.
God knows best how to fulfill what we yearn for. It is only when we subject our limited human understanding to God’s perfect understanding that we will find what we yearn for. Sooner or later, we will find that the path to actually obtain what we seek aligns perfectly with God’s commandments. We can either immediately trust him and take the shortest path to our goal, or we can assume we know better than him only to admit later that he was right all along.
Surface-level desires will contradict God’s commandments, because humans assign the fulfillment of their desires to things that can’t actually fulfill them. If we introspectively search into what we really yearn for, we will find that at their core, all human desires eventually arrive at joy. Those who seek joy directly will find it, and they will find it directly from God.
Those who do not seek joy directly will be waylaid by a path to something lesser—something that is fleeting and limited.
Temptation is found in anything that deviates from the path to the outcome we desire. Temptation is seeking effects in causes that do not produce them. For example, this is what James refers to as asking according to our lusts:
1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot <u>obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.</u>
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. (James 4)
Lusting is not the same as desiring! Lusting is seeking an outcome outside of the path God has ordained to obtain it. It is to seek what is not real; what is vain and fleeting.
In this case, the people James describes traverse a path that doesn’t lead to the outcome they wish for, then they are surprised at not receiving the outcome.
The wrong path will never result in the right outcome. As Alma put it, “...wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10)
Temptation is only possible when the information possessed is incomplete or incorrect. The cure for temptation is more or better information. It isn’t, as most assume, the stifling of desire. Desires are informed by, constrained by, and driven by information. If you sincerely believe a certain path can’t deliver the outcome that some think it does, you will not be tempted to traverse it, period.
If information is the cure for temptation, why doesn’t God give you everything he knows? Weightlifting provides a good analogy to understand this mystery. Suppose that the challenges of the world require strength to overcome. To drop 500lbs on your chest during a benchpress would not help you get stronger—it would kill you. In order to progress in strength, there is a gradual process that consists in structured lifting of progressively heavier weights combined with sufficient nutrition and recovery to grow. In the process of time, you can get to the point where you can lift heavy weights, but there is no other way to achieve this outcome.
You can only gain information as fast as you seek it, obey it, and value it. Those interested in this topic should read the author’s book, The Glory of God is Intelligence.