When Desires Become Demands - Part 2

Today, we are continuing the discussion from yesterday on desires that get out of control and affect our relationship. Here, Paul Tripp moves through the transformation of our desires to expectations and disappointments.

Once my heart is ruled by the desire for a certain thing, it cannot help but affect my relationship to you. Need inevitably produces expectation ("You should").  If I am convinced I need something and you  have said that you love me, it seems right to expect that you will help me get it. The dynamic of (improper) need-driven expectation is the source of untold conflict in relationships.

Eventually I will come to accept the logic of my neediness. I will find it painful to live without the thing I desire. It becomes my right. This powerful expectation will not only shape my relationship with people, but with God as well. My plan for our relationship is that it would meet my needs.

But it doesn't stop there. You do not know that I have christened these desires as needs, and you do not meet my expectations. Expectation very quickly leads to disappointment ("You didn't!")....There is a direct relationship between expectation and disappointment, and much of our disappointment in relationships is not because people have actually wronged us, but because they have failed to meet our expectations.

Disappointment then leads to some form of punishment ("Because you didn't, I will..."). We are hurt and angry because people who say they love us seem insensitive to our needs. So we strike back in a variety of ways to punish them for their wrongs against us. We include everything from the silent treatment (a form of bloodless murder where I don't kill you but act as if you do not exist) to horrific acts of violence and abuse. I am angry because you have broken the laws of my kingdom. God's kingdom has been supplanted. I am no longer motivated by a love for God and people so that I use the things in my life to express that love. Instead I love things, and use people - and even the Lord - to get them. My heart has been captured. I am in active service of the creation, and the result can only be chaos and conflict in my relationships.

Here we see how expectations create a "You should"-based relationship, followed by the inevitable "You didn't!" dynamic, and ending with the "Because you didn't, I will..." trap that sets us up as judgmental gods and destroys earthly relationships and strains our relationship with the true God. Please be careful about what desires rule you, brothers.

When Desires Become Demands - Part 1

In Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand, Paul Tripp describes the process when our desires - often good desires - become unrighteous demands on other people. It's worth noting that during this transformation, the one making the demands often becomes the center of his own universe. Not a good place for a Christian to be in.

The problem with desire is that in sinners it very quickly morphs into demand ("I must"). Demand is the closing of my fists over a desire. Even though I may be unaware that I have done it, I have left my proper position of submission to God. I have decided that I must have what I have set my heart on and nothing can stand in the way. I am no longer comforted by God's desire for me; I am threatened by it, because God's will potentially stands in the way of my demand. I can no longer conceive of a good life (moment, day, week, situation, location, relationship) without this thing. The morphing of my desire changes my relationship to others. 

[The next step is] to enter the room loaded with a silent demand: You must help me get what I want. If you are an obstacle, I will immediately be angry and impatient with you. But you don't know the rules of the game. I haven't announced my demand to you because I am unaware that my heart is increasingly controlled by it.

The expansion of desire doesn't end there. Demand quickly morphs into need ("I will"). I now view the thing I want as essential to life. This is a devastating step in the eventual slavery of desire. To give a rather silly example, cake is nice after a meal, but it is not essential. Respiration, on the other hand, is a basic human need. Without oxygenated blood, I will die. To "christen" desire as need is equivalent to viewing cake as I do respiration. Cake no longer has a simple "nice if you can get it" quality. Now I must have it at the end of every meal. If I do not get it, I will be angry.

Tomorrow, we'll see how this can get even worse.