Your Desires Are Worth Exploring

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Desire feels like a hush-hush topic, especially for Christian women.  There’s almost an element of shame, maybe selfishness, attached to the word. In this episode, we’re challenging the shame with an open conversation. 

Understanding that you are sacred by design means carefully looking at and exploring the intricacies of your sexuality.  

Your desires are worth exploring.

Let’s dive in.

This Episode’s Transcription

Andrea 0:02
Welcome to sacred by design, I am so honored and grateful to be here. This episode, these shows are meant to be an opportunity for conversation that you might not have, even with your very best friend, the kinds of conversations that you have with your best friend, but maybe take it to the next level the questions that you might not even know you have permission to ask. We’re asking and answering and working through today. And I’m so excited because Kit is here with me today. Hi, good to be here today with you, Andrea, glad you’re here. And we’re going to talk about a word right off the bat that does not feel like something that we can talk about. And it’s desire. The word desire, if we just leave it out there for a moment, what a powerful word. Yeah. Desire lives at the very core of our spiritual lives yet we don’t talk about it. Our longings deep down inside are what drive us. And yet, we pile a lot of things, a lot of people a lot of tasks on top of it. And for many reasons facing even naming these longings can feel scary. But desire is alive. Yeah. So today, kid, I’m so glad that you’re here with me to help explore a little bit more about how we can understand our desires, uncover them, and figure out how to work on them with God.

Kit 1:45
Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s there’s so many reasons why it’s important to talk about desire. And I know, we don’t, we don’t know we’re afraid of it. But one important thing is that we, first of all, we have them, God’s given us, many of them. And so we want to acknowledge it. And if we don’t, if we push them down, they’re just going to come out sideways, it comes, it happens all the time in our lives, we just push it down, and we’re like, oh, I don’t want for anything, I don’t want anything. But then, you know, we’re acting out in ways that we don’t understand. And so we want to, first of all, ask God to help us to unlock them, you know, help us to get in touch with what am I? What do I long for? Not just my answer, but what do I really longed for? And learn? Would you help me sift through them? You know, what are ones that are from you? And what are ones that maybe I’ve created? You know, and so just to be able to bring it to God, just like we bring anything else, you know, including connectedness, physical expression, those are the denote the ones that we usually tap down that the sexual, physical things, but those are a part of his design. So we want to know what they are, too.

Andrea 2:56
Is it just me? Or is it awkward to bring things like sexual desire, longings to a holy God? How does that work? How do we unlock those with him?

Kit 3:07
You know, I don’t know how this how we got to this point that we realized that we think we can’t talk to God about these things, since he created all of them. It’s not like we’re bringing something to his attention that he’s like, Oh, I didn’t know that. Never heard of that. And he created you, He created me, he knows everything anyway. I know. But it’s hard to imagine to talk about it. But I think he not only knows it all, he’s just waiting for us, to trust Him, to bring it to him, you know, so that he can help us not shove him down. Because he knows that denying our longings will be suffocating. And so he doesn’t want us to do that. And every desire, you know, what’s interesting is every desire, even the distorted ones reveal something of God, and how he created us. So I, I’m with you, let’s put a small bit of light on those desires today and see where we go.

Andrea 4:02
Okay, let me just process for a second. I’m grateful that you, small bit of light sounds good and appropriate. So how do we move forward? To understand distorted from healthy ones? All of it with care and kindness. How do we do that? Yeah.

Kit 4:21
Well, here’s a really interesting quote, GK Chesterton wrote something interesting. He said, A man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God. So what does that mean? And what does that mean in our lives? I mean, I think we’re all longing to connect and to belong. And I know for me, you know, as a young girl, I was longing for love. I was I lived in a lot of chaos and a lot of dysfunction and really was desperate for some love and I didn’t know where to look for it. And so I began to look for it in an unhealthy way to boys were starting to pay attention to me at that age. I thought, oh, Oh, I think that’s gonna be this is my way. And so I began to give away things of myself that I didn’t know I was even doing. And that became a habit. And then it just went from in later into my teens into my 20s. And actually, you know, there were just many years of loneliness, promiscuous pneus. And it took me a really long time to understand. And in fact, I’m definitely still learning that there’s a very deep desire in me, to feel loved, to be accepted. And I had to be really honest with that, and I could have just judged myself or hated myself for acting out. But instead, over time, Lord helped me to really see that he wanted me to help sort out that desire, and not like judge myself. So you know. The other thing that’s interesting is Meister Eckhart said, the reason we’re not able to seek out is the faintness of our desire. And I think that means that if our desires faint, we won’t see God or His goodness, or the beauty connected to him. Again, like I said, earlier, you shove everything down. So if we don’t pay attention to our desire, and it’s not bold and out there, we won’t, we will miss so much of the good that comes from God.

Andrea 6:26
The idea of paying attention, and taking our desires, and even just seeing them and taking them from faint to bold, is I mean, just as you described, is a lifelong journey. Yeah. And that’s where I think spiritual coaching becomes a huge asset, I can’t transform myself, but I can create conditions for spiritual transformation. And that’s where a spiritual coach can, can really help with the healing. And that’s what we’re about here in regeneration, yes,

Kit 6:55
it’s such a gift, isn’t it, to meet with somebody and to allow them to have a safe place where you begin to say, Where have you been hurt, where you’ve been wounded, because those things lead us to the source where I just our desires got confused. And you know, it’s not an easy connect the dots, but with God’s presence, and help and His Holy Spirit, we can really begin to connect those dots. And he wants to redeem those desires, and he wants to always, you know, get us back on the right path.

Andrea 7:28
There is no element of shame in anything that you’re saying. And that’s what I think is really important for us to remember while we’re doing this work, that it’s not you sit with a coach, or you sit with your journal, and expect to hear bad, dirty, you know, wrong. But it’s this opportunity to put a little light to work through and connect the dots. And to get in touch with the source of confusion. How do we do that? How does that type of healing work? If you have something we should be talking about, let us know, send us an email to podcast at regeneration. ministries.org. In the meantime, please be sure to review Rate, Subscribe and share back to the show.

Kit 8:15
Yeah, you know, I think that one of the things you just mentioned that I want to put some light on is, you know, we think that God is somehow going to judge us. And that’s why taking it to him and allowing him to say I understand I see that, and experience that changes everything, then you have the sense of awe of this freedom, he is going to meet me and and say it’s okay. And you know, once you begin to experience that, you know, and even just a little bit of it will give you that that sense of oh, I can take this further. And so, you know, I know for me, a wound that revealed us so much, and my what we call story work. And this is really important, right? We always, we don’t even know we have stories. And it’s important to us to get in touch with our stories. And for me, a wound that was revealed was I didn’t feel safe around my father. And so I didn’t know this, but that led to a pattern where I was looking for safety. I was looking for safety with physical and emotional connection with men. And obviously, you know, that search did not help me. It got me into a lot of emotional dependency and codependency. And so I’m still in the process with God of understanding. What does it mean to find my safety with God? How do I take that longing for safety? How does how does God are the process of spiritual coaching helped me put light on that so I can find a healthy way to to meet that need. And spiritual directors and counselors have You know, are really, really precious in all of this. And again, I said this before, but it’s so true, this is a lifelong process. You know, I don’t want anybody to hear this and be like, oh, I need to get, you know, get on this and get it done. There are things that God’s revealing to me today that I didn’t know last week, and He will reveal something to me next week that I didn’t know, you know, so just to be able to be like, Alright, let me be willing to, to take time and do this. And you’ll hear me quote, Ruth Barton all the time, because she is such a vital part of my spiritual life. But she said something so bold, she said, our desire for God, and our desire to have more of him is the truest deepest part of us. So, if that’s true, how does that impact how we live, and how we spend our time and what we think about? I mean, I think these are all things that we begin to explore as we really look at our stories, and take the time to open this up to God. And help him you know, really put the pieces together for us.

Andrea 11:14
I wish I had said at the beginning of this to grab a paper pencil, and say, write down some of these questions. Because these are great journal questions to sit with yourself for a little while and consider and bring to God and ask what the next step is, you know,

Kit 11:33
questions are so good, aren’t they? And so if you and I were in a spiritual coaching session, right now, we might explore some kind of spiritual practice, because spiritual practices are not like, oh, let’s do it, let’s do something to check off our list there a way to draw near to God. And so always in a spiritual coaching session, when we’re talking about something going through some tender things like stories, we’ll do some kind of practice at the end that draws us nearer to God into his spirit. And so, you know, in thinking about all of this and thinking about desire, and how do we get in touch with it, you know, practice I’d love for us to explore a little bit is the idea of solitude. You know, let’s explore practice of solitude. But that sounds really what sounds hard

Andrea 12:22
about it, because these are such big questions. These are such deep questions, and I’m avoiding them for a reason we avoid these things for a reason. So to sit alone, and to sit quiet. Yeah, that is difficult, but brave. Yeah, really brave work. And so are you. Can you walk us through that?

Kit 12:43
Yeah. You know, I think it is true, if there’s a decision that we make, okay, I want to get in touch with these deep things. And many of us, you know, sometimes we’re like too much, too much pain don’t want to. But my encouragement is, you know, be willing, be curious. And I love that word. Curious, be curious. And so if we really want to get in touch with these deep things, we have to get away from the world, and all of its distractions, and have an honest encounter with God, in solitude is how we can do that. It’s a place for us to share our soul with God. And to ask him to help us understand who are we? Who are we, You created us. And so, spending time with God in this intimate way really brings up these desires, he begins to say, you know, this is who you are, and this is what you longed for. And over time, you get a deeper understanding. And then, as you get in touch with your desires, you realize, oh, some of these have gone sideways. And again, you know, inviting God into this, it feels overwhelming. And at times, it is very hard work but inviting God into it, changes it, it becomes this intimate companionship that you do together. So, where to begin, begin where you are, you know, begin to get in touch with what you enjoy. So we can make this I know I’d made it much more complicated at times than it needs to be. Spend time alone with God and ways to bring new life like what brings you life Andrea?

Andrea 14:28
A new thing for me watercolor.

Kit 14:30
Okay, awesome. So, God wants to do watercolor with you. He would really love to. He’s a perfect, perfect parent. He wants to delight in you. He wants to do things with you that you love. And so gardening, running, journaling, painting, swimming, walking, anything that allows you to retreat from the frontlines of life. You know, keep it simple, and take it slow. And I’m crying. It’s gonna happen Don’t worry about the tears.

Andrea 15:02
I just think it’s so the word intimate that you used is, it’s so special. So my goodness, this is what happens. This is just what happens and it is okay. Yes, abs tears are

Kit 15:16
good. So I feel like something touched you that you’re getting in touch, even maybe right now with some desire. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Andrea 15:27
Just the idea of creating and doing something beautiful. And that God wants to do that with me. Yes.

Kit 15:33
And he does. I think that’s so sweet. It is so sweet. He is very sweet. Yeah. So can I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors? Henry now in. He says solitude is the furnace of transformation. in solitude, we get in touch with God and our desires. And God can use that to grow us and change us. And so allow yourself the freedom to begin exploring solitude and see where the desires that you see lead you and enjoy it, and let us know if we can help.

Andrea 16:12
Thank you. Desire is powerful and precious. And this was a powerful and precious conversation. And I hope that our listeners or viewers are able to if they feel the need to share it, or to save this and journal through it and work through it, or reach out because that this is what we’re here for.

Kit 16:33
Yeah. Well, it was really, really a pleasure to be with you and to talk about this today.

Thanks For Reading.

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