The word desire comes from the Latin word desiderare, which, if we break it down, we get de-, meaning from, and sider-, sidus, meaning stars, constellations, or heavenly bodies. So, desire literally means “from the Heavens.” Our desires come from our Heavenly Father. “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” (Psalms 37:4). God gives us the desires of our heart. They are gifts from the heavens. But which desires come from God? The strange and glorious truth is that all desires come originally from God. Desire is a key component of Love and God is Love. We desire to be like God and so we obey His commandments and live our lives in ways that show our love and our desire for the happiness of our Heavenly Father, for our brothers and sisters, and for ourselves. Desire is that unbreakable, unshakable, inescapable bond that tethers us to our Heavenly Father, and Him to us. Desire is the driving force behind every good thing we do in our lives, and fulfilling our righteous desires is the ultimate source of every joy. If this is true, then why does desire get such a bad rap? The problem is that our desires are shaped by our knowledge, our understanding, and our wisdom. Satan cannot create desires in us just as he and all other evil things are incapable of creating anything. He can only twist and corrupt that which is good in the hopes that he can confuse us and our desires. Satan tries to bend or distort our understanding of our desires until we are focused on the wrong parts of the desire. Either we are tricked into wanting more of something than is good for us, or wanting it sooner than we are ready for it, or especially in the case of something unpleasant or challenging, we become convinced that we are not ready or up for the things that we desire. Our one true desire should be to be reunited with our Heavenly Father and all of our family for all of eternity. This desire should be streamlined like an arrow, completely focused in every respect on reaching that goal. All of our desires come to us from our Heavenly Father with that orientation towards returning back to His presence. Satan tries to rob us of our spiritual momentum and get us off course, but he only manages this at all when we desire to believe his lies. Alma teaches us that all it takes is a desire to believe and that desire will work in us until we really do believe. This principle works equally well with believing the truth as it does believing lies. If we are plagued by a persistent temptation that easily besets us, what this means is that we have been given an especially powerful and good desire from our Heavenly Father and that desire has been pointed somewhere other than where it was originally intended. We don't overcome our temptation by ripping the desire out of our hearts or burning it away or numbing it out through apathy. We overcome the temptation by examining the desire and discovering where and how it has been twisted and corrupted and then working with the Lord to heal and reorient and restore that desire to its proper function in our lives. We should not be trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to our desires. If Satan is tempting us relentlessly with a certain desire, it is because he knows that this desire properly oriented can be an especially powerful force for good in our lives. We should look at our sins and mistakes not as evidence of our own weakness and failure to refrain from unrighteous desires but rather as opportunities to examine how our desires have been bent out of shape. I know that if we start looking at all of our desires as coming from our Heavenly Father then we will be able to get better and better at seeing through Satan's lies and become more and more wise at keeping our desires within the confines of the strait and narrow path that the Lord has set for them. I hope that we can all learn to embrace our desires and grow in wisdom and understanding and power as we treat these precious gifts from our Heavenly Father as the priceless treasures that they are.
