Righteous desires should be cherished, even when they long pre-date the blessings we seek. Our desires, when righteous, do so much to settle and steady us.
The scriptures teach the significance of our desires, righteous and otherwise. The Savior taught, “And by their desires and their works you shall know them” (D&C 18:38).
Alma, in his missionary zeal, exclaimed:
“I ought not to harrow up in my desires, the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire…
“Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men…he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.
“Now, seeing that I know these things, why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called?” (Alma 29:4-6).
I take these scriptures to mean that our desires classify us. Our righteous desires determine, in large part, where we end up. Given the obvious importance of these righteous desires in propelling us forward in the right direction, it is folly to abdicate them, even if they are long in coming to fruition.
During a time when I served in Relief Society, I was asked to answer a letter the Relief Society president received from a single woman in her thirties. Frustrated about not being married and not having children of her own, she poured out her worries in writing. She explained that she’d contributed generously to the Church, served faithfully in every calling, prayed diligently morning and night, and attended the temple regularly. The Lord had responded to her with “a great big nothing,” as she phrased it. She felt she had given her all, and now she was ready to jettison her righteous desires to be a wife and mother. Worse, she was prepared to abandon her testimony because “the whole church thing seems fruitless.”
“Have faith,” seemed the proper answer to her plea for counsel. I felt, though, that such a response wouldn’t satisfy her. It seemed she wanted to hear something easier-something defined and packaged in all the ways life usually isn’t. I thought about Gideon and shared his story with her, as I liken it unto myself.
As we meet Gideon, (Judges 6) he is threshing “wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.”
“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” I take it from Gideon’s response that he was none too impressed by that lofty greeting, and he was most unhappy about living as a vassal. His retort:
“…Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
To which the Lord responded, “…Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?”
Gideon replied, “…Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.
“And the Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.”
Gideon had his doubts, so he asked for-and got-a sign. When he finally understood that he had seen an angel, that he had received a calling from the Lord, he feared for his life:
“…for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face.
“And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.”
Gideon’s first job was to “throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it:
“And build an altar unto the Lord” and do sacrifice.
Now I am sure that Gideon felt enormous concern for religious, cultural, and familial reasons. Still, to this distant observer it also appears that despite all that, Gideon took hesitant first steps in his new calling. He was no Superman emerging from the phone booth ready to save the day, but he moved ahead.
“Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father’s household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night” (Judges 6:11-16, 22-23, 25-27).
In the end, after all the hesitation and need for reassurance, with a mere 300 men Gideon defeated the Midianites, proving that the Lord does deliver His people.
What I love most about Gideon, the hesitant hero, is that he kept on. Gideon’s story tells me that through it all, he retained his righteous desires. He did not give in or give up even when he was afraid. He may have paused when he had doubts, but never was he permanently immobilized or dissuaded by his fears. He kept after what was his to do, his to be, thereby becoming a tool in our Father’s hands, despite his fits and starts.
That’s the level of faith I wanted that good sister to ponder. I wanted her to look deeper, to revalue her righteous desires, to shine them up and let them sparkle in her heart as bright reminders of her beliefs. I sensed that she, like Gideon and all the rest of us, had stumbled, but she was still on the path. She desired what was right.
I wanted her to recall the words of the Savior and the prophets and to reaffirm that her own, heart-felt, righteous desires were both gift and opportunity. I longed for her to consider her righteous desires as wonders to be cherished and cultivated, and to understand that in large measure what she did with and about them would demonstrate her mettle.
And that’s what I shared with her-my desire that she would recognize and hold tight to her own righteous desires.
