"I want to want . . ."

Last night when my deacons and I met with our regional minister to discuss our NCD survey results, we talked at one point about the difference between aspirational values and actual values. Aspirational values are the values we say we have. For instance, as believers we say that we want to spend our lives serving Christ and glorifying God, but our actual values -- how we actually live and spend our time -- demonstrate that we'd often (or at least sometimes) rather live ordinary lives enjoying at least modest creature comforts without ever having to journey beyond our comfort zones.

Thinking of this tonight made me think that while I can say, "I want to serve Christ and glorify God, what I really mean is, "I want to want to serve Christ and glorify God." At least it can be that way. Even our noblest aspirations are eroded by self-interest. Realizing that so often even my desires are skewed by sin, I see that I don't always want what I should want. Sometimes this is true when we worship and sing a variety of lyrics that tend toward the aspirational rather than the actual. We express things in words, in song, that we don't altogether mean or feel. We confess in sung prayers that we want more of God in our lives, that we long for a deeper relationship with him when in reality there are times that our behaviour demonstrates the opposite: we really want our own way, our own desires met, and we want as little interference from God as possible.

This isn't to say that our worship or our aspirations are therefore disingenuous. Rather, it's about recognizing that our desires -- what we want -- also need to be transformed. Only through the work of the Spirit can the aspirational be gradually turned into the actual. Only through the messy work of prayer, worship, Bible study, fellowship, and daily discipleship do we become what we ought to be and therefore more fully want what we ought to want: to serve Christ and glorify God. This is what I want, anyway; or at least it's what I want to want.