JD, in our seedbed.com Wake Up Call devotional, challenged us to identify from God’s Word, the verse(s) that would guide us this year, not merely a single focus word. JD has told the story of a Ms. Betty, a senior storekeeper who would always greet him with this question, “What word are you standing on today?” She was asking what from the Word of God was guiding him at that moment. I have pondered what in God’s word would guide me this year. Nothing in particular was clicking until I read Dr. Curt Thomson’s message for the New Year today. Then I knew…..
This message for the New Year from Dr. Curt Thompson, Christian mentor to me and many, author, psychiatrist, neurophysiologist , and wise counselor…. My word for the year will be Psalm 37:4, “ Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
I long for the desires of my heart to be molded by, conformed to, and reflect the desires of God’s own heart. Jesus’ own life in obedience to God’s will reflected the desires of the heart of God.
I had recently read that the question one should ask of herself is not “What would Jesus do?” But “What does God desire?” It is clear that Jesus does what God desires. So will I, as well as I am able to discern it, and strengthened in knowing God will give me all I need to accomplish it. CBB 1/7/26
| Dear friend, As we stand at the beginning of a new year, many of us are asking familiar questions—sometimes quietly, sometimes urgently. What do I want this year to bring?What needs to change?What should I resolve? Often, our resolutions are attempts to name our thirst. And thirst has a way of clarifying things. When you are utterly parched, the answer to the question “What do you want?” does not require much reflection. Thirst narrows our focus. It reminds us of what is essential—of the life-giving water we usually take for granted until we begin to run dry. Not surprisingly, this is also the very first question Jesus asks in the Gospel of John. When Jesus turns to the disciples of John the Baptist and asks, “What do you want?” he assumes something important about them—and about us. He assumes that we are people of desire. Of longing. He does not shame this or attempt to correct it. He simply names it. How could we not be people of desire? Jesus himself tells us that if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must become like little children. And children have no lack of wanting.  Every baby enters the world hungry and thirsty—for nourishment, yes, but also for comfort and connection. Newborns, infants, and toddlers are unselfconscious bundles of desire. And this depth of wanting does not fade with age. It only becomes quieter, more hidden, more carefully managed. Desire itself does not disappear until we are dead.So the question is not whether we want. The question is what we want. But here is something we often miss: no matter what children ask for—milk, a toy, a set of car keys, or the love of their beloved—the object of their desire is almost always a bid for loving attachment. Beneath the request is a longing to be received, to be responded to with attunement. Even when the answer must be “no,” what matters is that the wanting itself is honored. As Dan Siegel reminds us, these longings can be named with four simple words. We want to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure. These four “S” words describe what children—and adult children like us—desire more than anything else: to be known. And to be known in this way is to be loved. Loved with the joy that says, “You’re here!” every time we enter the room or cross someone else’s mind—even, and especially, on our worst days. And yet, most of us are not very skilled at being known. Which means we are not very skilled at receiving love. This does not mean we are incapable of loving others—though we all have room to grow there. It means that for many reasons, we struggle to let love actually reach us. And because we cannot give what we have not received, we turn to substitutes. Busyness. Achievement. Technology. Money. Control. Anxiety. These are the familiar stand-ins we have been perfecting since the Garden of Eden. For many of us, our lives have been so full that we barely noticed how much we relied on these things to make up for the emptiness that only love can fill. A new year has a way of exposing this. We hope that better habits or clearer goals will finally satisfy us. But resolutions alone cannot meet the longing to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure. Which brings us back—again—to Jesus’ question: What do you want?  If we are honest, many of our answers are simply translations of a deeper plea. Just as it was when we were toddlers, telling Jesus what we want is another way of telling him how desperately we want to be loved. To be known. Jesus does not force us to say this. He waits. He waits for us to grow tired of our substitutions, to become honest enough to receive what we cannot manufacture.Jesus is not impatiently waiting for the right answer before he acts. He is waiting for us to allow him to love us. And when we do—something far easier said than done—we discover that the true object of our desire is not a what after all. It is a who. So how do we practice receiving the love we long for? Here are four straightforward, not-so-easy steps you might carry into this new year: Twice each week, tell someone you genuinely love that you love them, and give them two concrete reasons why. Take at least ten minutes, and schedule the time. Once a week, ask someone you trust to tell you why they love you, offering specific examples. This may feel uncomfortable—and that discomfort is part of the work. Receiving love is a skill we must practice. Three times a week, choose a Gospel story in which Jesus demonstrates love. Imagine yourself there. Imagine Jesus including you in the conversation. Write down what he says to you and reflect on it. Two to three times a week, meditate on Luke 3:22. Allow yourself to sit in the Father’s presence as he delights in being with you—without striving or earning. As this year unfolds, my hope is not simply that we would become better versions of ourselves, but that we would become people more deeply rooted in love. Because when we dare to receive that love, we may discover that what we desire—living, breathing, embodied joy—is also what we are becoming.And we will know that it is what we have always wanted. Warmly, Curt |
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