God is the object of all desire, no matter how earthy and unholy our desire might seem. Everything we desire is inside of God. Both Jesus and the Psalms tell us this.
God is the object of all desire and only in God will our deepest longings be satisfied. We express this in our prayers, perhaps without ever being conscious of what we are saying: My soul longs for you in the night. You, Lord, alone, can fill my heart. We say those words, but is it really God that we long for in the night and ache for in our desires? Do we really believe that God is the object of our desires?
When we look at what’s beautiful, full of life, attractive, sexually alluring, and pleasurable on earth, do we really think and believe that this is contained in an infinitely richer way inside of God and inside the life into which God invites us? Do we really believe that the joys of heaven will surpass the pleasures of earth and that, already in this world, the joys of virtue are superior to the sensations of sin?
It is not easy to believe this because we struggle congenitally with turning our conscious attention toward God. Often we find religious practice and prayer more of a disruption to life than an entry into it, more a duty than a joy, more an asceticism than a pleasure, and more as something that takes us away from real life than as something that helps us enter its depths.
Moreover, if we are honest, we must admit that we often harbor a secret envy of those who recklessly plumb sacred energy for their own pleasure. Many of us doggedly do our duty in committing ourselves to something higher; but, like the older brother of the Prodigal Son, too often serve God out of obligation and are bitter about the fact that many others do not. This side of eternity, virtue often envies sin, and (full disclosure) this is particularly true regarding sexuality.
Partly this is natural and a sign of health, given the brute fact of our physicality and the weight of the present moment. These naturally impose themselves on us in a way that can make the things of God and spirit seem abstract and unreal. That’s simply the human condition and God, no doubt, understands. Only in certain graced, mystical moments are we affectively above this.
Thus, it can be helpful to more explicitly tease out something we profess in faith but struggle to actually believe, namely, that all that we find attractive, beautiful, irresistible, erotic, and pleasurable here on earth is found even more fully inside of its author, God.
If we believe that God is the author of all that is good, then God is better looking than any movie star, more intelligent than the brightest scientist or philosopher, wittier and funnier than the best comedian, more creative than any artist, writer, or innovator, more sophisticated than the most-learned person on earth, more exuberant and playful than any child, more dynamic than any rock star, and, not least, more erotic and sexually attractive than any person on earth.
We don’t ordinarily think about God this way, but the truth of that is given in Scripture and is codified in Christian dogma where, in essence, we are taught that God is one, true, good, and beautiful and is the author and ultimate source of all that is one, good, true, and beautiful. Which means that God is also witty, playful, and erotic. Everything that is alluring on earth is inside of God.
But knowing that does not take away the power of earthly things to allure, nor should it. Countless things can overwhelm us: a beautiful person, a sunset, a piece of music, a work of art, youthful exuberance, a child’s playfulness, a baby’s innocence, someone’s wit, feelings of intimacy, feelings of nostalgia, a glass of wine on the right evening, a stirring in our sexuality, or, most deeply of all, an inchoate sense of the uniqueness and preciousness of human life itself.
We need to honor these things and thank God for the gift, even as we make ourselves aware that all of this is found more-richly inside of God and that we lose nothing when virtue, religion, or commitment ask us to sacrifice these things for something higher. Jesus, himself, promises that whatever we give up for the sake of what is higher will be given back to us a hundredfold. Knowing this, we can live our lives enjoying fully what is earthy and earthly. The beauties and pleasures of this life are a gift from God, meant to be enjoyed. Moreover, by being aware of their source, we can then also be free enough to accept the very real limits that life puts on our desires. Better still, we need not fear death since what we will lose will be eclipsed a hundredfold by what we gain.