“I am what I feel” sums up expressive individualism. Our culture frames identity around discovering what our deepest desires and longings are. To know our longings is to know ourselves.
In Billie Eilish’s 2023 song “What was I made for?” written for “Barbie,” Eilish reflects on the confusing journey to understand her feelings. It’s this journey, she assures herself that will lead to her happiness.
'Cause I, I
I don't know how to feel
But I wanna try
I don't know how to feel
But someday, I might
Someday, I might
…
Think I forgot how to be happy
Something I'm not, but something I can be
Something I wait for
Something I'm made for
Something I'm made for
Eilish concludes by asserting that she was made to be happy. She assures herself that the pathway to her happiness is learning how to identify her feelings (and then identify as her feelings).
This is so obvious to the contemporary western reader, my reflections might seem pedantic. “Of course!” you might think, “and the sky is blue… so what?”
The Bible dares to present a very different perspective on our relationship to happiness. Scripture reveals the origins and intentions of our desires.
James urges us to be cautious about our desires as they set off a chain reaction: our desires draw us into temptation, then that temptation draws us into sin, and then that sin leads to spiritual death. ”But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (Jms 1:14-15). For James, the roots of desire bear the fruit of death.
If desires lead to death, what then leads to happiness according to scripture?
Jesus answers that question. He says that if we abide in his love, and then abide through our obedience to him, we will then experience joy. He pictures it this way, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:9-11). In other words, our joy comes from obedience (to keep his commandments) just as Jesus had great joy in obeying his Father. His path to that joy is very different than the path that the world says leads to joy. For Jesus, the roots of love bear the fruit of joy.
If we consider these two side-by-side we see this:
Part of vine Desires Jesus
Fruit: Death Joy
Branch: Sin Obedience
Trunk: Temptation Abiding
Roots: Desires Love
Jesus and culture both promise similar outcomes: joy and happiness, respectively. Culture says trust your feelings because they’ll lead you to happiness. Jesus says trust me because I’ll lead you to an inner joy such that once you experience even a sliver it will fill you with more satisfaction than anything the world can offer. Jesus tells us that if we root ourselves in the eternal overflow of the Trinitarian love, abiding in God and submitting our desires to him, obeying his voice instead, we will experience full joy. However, this path requires faith to believe that denying my carnal desires and trusting God’s invitation will lead to my ultimate joy. This path feels risky and hard at first because it requires trusting what can’t be seen.
The vine of desires
James 1:14-15
Desiresà temptation à sin à death
The vine of Jesus
John 15:9-11
Love à abiding à obedience à joy full
May I ask two questions if you feel leery about denying your desires and trusting Jesus?
First, how much long-lasting deep-rooted joy have you felt following the path of trying to satisfy your desires? Of course, there’s short-term satisfaction, but do you feel deep abiding, peaceful joy? Do you find yourself still yearning for something more to fill your heart?
Second, how much joy do you really think those in our culture are experiencing as they follow the path of finding their identity through their desires? How many musicians and movie stars have appeared glamourous in their heyday yet died tragically: depressed and alone? I don’t think Jesus and James would be surprised that our age of expressive individualism struggles with happiness. We live in a time where there is a loneliness crisis despite being connected to more human beings than anyone would have believed possible fifty years ago. Rates of depression and suicide have spiked over the past twenty years. In the immortal words of Mick Jagger, it seems as though we can’t get no satisfaction. In the timeless words of Bono, it appears that we still haven’t found what we are looking for.
To be clear, to follow the path of Jesus is also to accept the hard things he has to say about our sexuality, our money, our consumption, our anger, and our friendships. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) Jesus tells us that to follow him and the ways of his Kingdom is to not be angry at your neighbor, to not lust even in your heart, not divorce (in most cases), not retaliate, and love your archrival. To trust Jesus is to give generously and sacrificially. Abiding in Jesus in hard heart work. And yes, it also means trusting that Jesus (and not culture) is the expert on sexual identity.
Doing life with Jesus is not something we dip our toe into, like a chilly pool. It is an all-or-nothing affair. Based on its frequent inclusion in the gospel accounts (at least six times), a mantra Jesus preached often was, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39). This is a call to absolute surrender. It is dying to ourselves. To be sure, this call is hard, but the reward is unrivaled because Jesus promises deep satisfaction to those who seek him with all their heart. Jesus doesn’t pretty things up for us. He doesn’t try to pretend that we can satisfy our desires and follow him. He is honest about the cost of following him: everything.
God demonstrates his love for us by telling us these hard truths. What if the result of abiding in the perfect Triune love of God is the only way to experience fullness of joy?
Not long ago I sat across from a congregant who, convicted by the Spirit, had broken off an affair that had given him more emotional fulfilment than he ever had with his wife. When he disclosed the affair to his wife, she told him the marriage was over and demanded that he move out. He had done so but refused to go back to the affair. He had taken radical steps to walk in sobriety and fidelity to his wife, despite her (understandable) unwillingness to forgive him. He was broken, deeply sorrowful for the pain he had caused her, and profoundly lonely. But he was free and he felt the loving presence of God more palpably than he had in years. He was free and he was finally willing to walk in obedience because he was choosing to live in the love of Christ as opposed to pursuing the desires of his flesh.
[i] This drawing was created by my daughter, Camille Beeson.
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Photo by Guillermo Latorre on Unsplash