Google Defines a Mirage as:“Something that appears real or possible, but is not in fact so”
Optical Illusion
If you are in the desert, sometimes the conditions in the desert cause an optical illusion through the refraction of light from the sun and heated air. If you are thirsty, you react by changing your direction toward the “refreshing water”. You walk, and walk, and walk but never reach the satisfaction & fulfillment your mind and body crave because it’s just not there… it’s a mirage.
We have all been wired with God-designed desires. Hunger is a God-designed way for the body to know it needs fuel, to survive, and to thrive. Along with the hunger response, God also designed the fulfillment that will satisfy the desire. He also graciously designed for us taste buds to enjoy the gift of food.
Click to view – God’s designed Boundaries of Vibrant Living
The same is true for sexual desire. It’s designed purpose is for procreation and intimacy between two individuals promised and committed to each other in the safety, trust and the covenant of marriage. Promiscuity, infidelity and pornography are mirages, cheap counterfeits, a dim distraction, that keeps us from true God-designed purpose and fulfillment in that area.
The same is also true for our desire for “things”… the stuff we acquire may have a good purpose, but when we must gather more and more things to fulfill us in ways “things” could not possibly fulfill us, we have missed the mark. “Things” are man-made without any real power to fulfill… They may serve a purpose but they don’t fulfill us, and are powerless to do so.
Our deepest longings were not meant to be fulfilled by food or sex or things.
Designed for Love
We were made for deep, authentic, and meaningful relationships. But even relationships can be mirages because no one can possibly satisfy the deepest recesses of our souls, they will always disappoint, they will always fall short, we will always seek to take more and expect more than anyone can give.
And on and on it goes… following one mirage after another. One truth always prevails… if we have emptiness, a longing, a hunger or desire, we will ALWAYS seek to fill it.
Designed. Loved. Redeemed.
We were designed by God and for God, therefore God is the only one big enough, and wonderful enough, and trustworthy enough to be the provider of our fullness! And once we receive fullness from the Lord, we then can receive fulfillment in this world, receiving Fatherly gifts and blessings from Him.
If I receive His gifts within the context of His love, I am then so full of grace and joy that His love will then naturally, overflow onto others without needing anything from them in return. I will naturally love and serve those around me selflessly… for Him, because I love Him, because I am so thankful. Now that is freedom! That’s fullness! That’s authentic and selfless love!
Why would I want to escape from authentic fullness in relationship with Jesus and settle for deceiving & empty mirages? I believe it’s because my eyes wander from my true Source to the mirages and I don’t believe and understand what I already have as a child of God, as a Christ-follower.
2 Peter 1:3 says… “His divine power has given us EVERYTHING WE NEED for a godly life through our KNOWLEDGE of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” (emphasis mine)
Jesus is my Indwelling all in all!
He has already proven His love and desire for me by offering Himself on the cross, to remove the broken part of me, the sin nature that will naturally consume me… eventually destroy me, and everything around me. He then fulfills me and restores me with His love, and grace, and acceptance that only He can give. In Him, I lack no good thing. He provides all He designed me to need.
“Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”…Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
– John 6:32-35
At times you may be deceived into follow the mirages: believing that eating lots of food, or buying something “shiny and new” or flirting with a coworker, or looking at pornography, will fulfill that deep longing, but it will only leave you disappointed, empty, unfulfilled and wanting more, always wanting more.
A Choice Based on Truth.
We ALWAYS have a choice that we can make based on Truth! We will always act on what we truly believe.
“Why spend money on what is not bread,and your labor on what does not satisfy?Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.”– Isaiah 55:2
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambitionwhen infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Post Written by Wayne Burns
