Temptation: A place to meet God

The other week at a conference I attended, one of the speakers said something that has been transforming my life. He said that every desire we have masks a deeper hunger, a hunger that is for God and that can only be fulfilled by him. Desires as simple as hunger pains, to desires for the latest clothes or technology, to desires that run as deep within us as sexual desires, beneath them all is our one true desire: God. He is for whom we are created.

The speaker also said that every temptation is a place where we meet God. He is there, and we can choose him, can choose his goodness and care, can choose the One our hearts are really yearning for. This reminds me and shows me in a new light, once again, how nothing with God can ever be bad.

Even my temptations become gifts when I realize this, because they are intimate places where Jesus wants to meet me and know me. They are places where I get to meet him alone, just as me in my weakness and vulnerability, places where I get to know him and trust him to save me.

Another one of the speakers at the conference defined sin in a way that goes hand-in-hand with this. He said that "sin is meeting legitimate needs in illegitimate ways." This definition really resonates within me because it addresses and gives legitimacy to the part of me that is helpless and incomplete. It acknowledges the part of me that aches for God, for love, for completion and says, yes, this part of you is real and good and true, what you were made for: To meet my legitimate need, God. It reminds me that every desire and temptation is a deeper hunger for God, and it asks me if I am going to trust him and allow him to provide for my legitimate needs, or if I am going to turn to something else that in itself is empty, and expect it to fill me.

We have a real need -- a need that cuts to the depths of who we are, a need that cries to be fulfilled, a need that begs to be acknowledged. We have a need for Love. This need is the most legitimate thing we will ever experience this side of Heaven, because it is a need for our God who is Love, a need for who we were created for, a need to be loved by Him. It is the most real part of who we are.

"God is more within us than we are ourselves," said Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. We need God, and he loves us. Let's let Him legitimately meet our legitimate need of him, let's let him love us.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Missouri, native and a recent graduate of Truman State University with a bachelor's degree in English.