God’s desires are based on a perfect understanding of what things are worth, what they cost, and what endures. Our desires, on the other hand, are based on foolish assumptions, false beliefs inherited from others, and vain wishes.
Man’s desires, by default, are not God’s desires. They are much lower: focused on what is easy, what is quick, what provides cheap pleasure, and what makes sense to our ignorant and foolish minds:
4 O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!
5 Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom’s paths! (Helaman 12)
Your default desires will not lead you to happiness. They will disappoint you by leading you to:
- Things which are fleeting.
- Things which are less than what you think they are.
- Things that are not nearly as good as what you don’t yet know about or correctly value.
In order to become all God intends you to be, you have to replace your natural desires and actions with the Lord’s desires and actions:
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)
What God sends you will conflict with what was there before. That’s why obeying him is described as yielding to him. You have to yield to all things that he sends you:
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)
Unfortunately, people do not embrace God’s obviously superior guidance:
Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide. (Helaman 12:6)
Why do people prefer such base alternatives when God offers such wonderful alternatives? Because the natural man: 1) does not perceive the good things God has to offer; 2) is not willing to let go of the inferior things they presently have to receive something better; and 3) is not willing to pay the price associated with what they say they want. Each of the foregoing problems are just facets of one problem: dishonesty.