10.6 Wanting

The soul is the wanting self (Chapter 5). In Hebrew, your soul desires is simply how you say you want. The heart has desires too: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). And in the New Testament the flesh becomes the great subject of wrong desire (Chapter 7).

Desire can be aimed at nothing. The Preacher tried everything his heart wanted, and it was "vanity and a striving after wind" (Ecclesiastes 2:11). "Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite [soul]: this also is vanity and a striving after wind" (Ecclesiastes 6:9).

Wanting speaks in the heart, and it drives thinking. "Let them not say in their hearts, 'Aha, our heart's desire!'" (Psalm 35:25). The rich man in Jesus' parable shows the whole chain. Wanting leads to thinking: "he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?'" (Luke 12:17). Thinking leads to a plan: "I will tear down my barns and build larger ones" (12:18). The plan ends in a word spoken to his own soul: "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry" (12:19).

Unmet wanting turns into fighting. "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask" (James 4:1–2). The outer quarrel is the inner war carried outward. And what is wanted against God can be given in anger. Israel craved meat, and "while the food was still in their mouths, the anger of God rose against them" (Psalm 78:30–31). They asked for a king: "I gave you a king in my anger" (Hosea 13:11).

Wanting can end in death. James gives the order: "Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death" (James 1:15). "The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor" (Proverbs 21:25). Wanting is also measured against death. Of the arrogant man, "His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough" (Habakkuk 2:5). And "love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave" (Song of Songs 8:6).

A want can be spoken in terms of death:

• Rachel, envying her sister: "Give me children, or I shall die!" (Genesis 30:1)
• Esau: "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?" (Genesis 25:32)

Paul names what is to be put to death: "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:5). Chapter 2 ("Death and sin") gives the account.

Wanting can reach past this life. "For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling … not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life" (2 Corinthians 5:2, 4). "Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior" (Philippians 3:20). Chapter 2 ("The body raised") gives the account.

Connections: with feeling (10.1), since unmet wanting becomes anger; into thinking (10.4) and choosing (10.7); with the soul (Chapter 5) and the flesh (Chapter 7); with life and death (Chapter 2), since desire conceived brings forth death.