As the philosopher Jagger said, "You can't always get what you want."
- House
Oh, I looked into that philosopher you quoted, Jagger, and you’re right, “You can’t always get what you want,” but as it turns out “if you try sometimes you get what you need.”
- Cuddy
I love that exchange from the pilot episode of House, M.D., even though the two lines are separated by about half the show. The line comes from what is probably my favorite Rolling Stones song. There was a punk metal band in Lufkin, TX in the late 90s that did a cover that was much better than the original, but my attention span is showing. Let me attempt to get back on track. I love this song, even now that I know that my attempts to try really hard to get what I wanted cost me nearly everything, including my freedom and should have cost my life more than once. The chasing of my wants broke me into pieces.
All the king's horses and all the king's men ain't got a hope in hell of putting my pieces back together again. I've seen things in my life that should never be seen. I'm talking things that'd make your skin crawl.
- Back To The Rocking Horse, Poison
Even as I pumped my body full of poisons to change the way I felt and bathed in regret of the past, I loved the song by Poison quoted above. It expressed the hopelessness I felt so well. I couldn't remember it, but my parents talked a lot about how happy and full of joy I was as a small boy, during my own rocking horse era. I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually have a rocking horse though, and I can't remember those happy days myself. It feels strange to be trying to get back to a state of being that you can't remember, but I wanted it. And I didn't think I could have it. Nothing I tried worked.
I tried really hard, living for the moment with an eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die/laugh now cry later lifestyle. I became a self proclaimed hedonist driven to live for pleasure and distraction disguised as joy. Not only did I not get what I wanted, I didn't get what I needed. My life became most heinous and my existence had about as much joy as Eeyore's. But Jagger was right, and I was doubly wrong.
First, I was wrong in my identification and pursuit of what I wanted. I didn't want much of what I said I wanted and grabbed for. OK, I did, but they weren't the real desire. They were the surface reflection. Like a boy who claims he wants a dog, when what he really wants is a constant companion who loves and accepts him as he is, I sought what I wanted in all the wrong people, places and things, but what it really came down to was that same desire to have a constant feeling of being wanted, loved and accepted as I am, not as I should be, and if I couldn't have that, then, my consolation want was to not feel the pain that not believing I had the first wish I wished caused and to not feel the fear that I never would. I went to places and did things that no one should ever go trying to get at least the consolation prize.
I became so battered, broken and bruised that I gave up all hope of ever having a life worth living. I couldn't do anything to feel better for long, and even things that brought temporary relief began to fail and cause more harm than good. And the King's men (and women) tried so hard for so long to make me better, or at least look better, that I knew that neither they nor their horses could put me together again. In fact, it seemed the more they tried, the more broken I became. I grew to resent the very existence of those who took the mess of my life as their own personal project to undertake as an attempt to look good in the eyes of the King. But the second way I was wrong is that I got the King's subjects mixed up with the King. While it was very true that those folks in the church nearly killed me trying to make me better, good, right.... and didn't have a hope in hell of bringing healing and restoration into my life, it was wrong that I couldn't be healed and restored.
The King could do what His people could never do. That's part of why He is the King. The King of kings and Lord of lords left His throne, out of love for us, and wrapped Himself in flesh to walk a lifetime in our shoes and do what we couldn't do. Then He died and rose so that His power to heal, restore, be made clean, and to live right and have relationship with the Creator could be given to us. He came to set the captives free, to heal the broken hearted and to declare the great news that God wants relationship with us, wants to be our loving Daddy and loves us as we are, not as we should be.
It turns out that the road to hell I traveled pursuing pleasure and distraction and chasing a thousand desires that all had their root in the same wish actually did lead to the place I really needed and wanted to go, and somehow innately knew I belonged. The sickness killing us all slowly and causing us to crave a thousand different things is all a side effect of a spiritual deficiency we were born with. Like a pregnant woman who craves strange foods because her body really needs some nutrient that is in the food rather than really needing pickles and ice cream, we think we need and we crave one strange thing, or a thousand combinations, when what really need is relationship with Daddy. We truly are without hope of filling that need and craving with anything else for long or well. It is hopeless to try to fix ourselves and set ourselves free of the nets we tangle ourselves in while trying to find what we truly want, and no one else, not even the King's children can make us any better either. But there is hope, because what we can not do for ourselves, what no one else can do for us, the King can.
There is a solution. We can walk away from the chains of bondage and the slavery we sold ourselves into trying to meet our own needs. We can be free. We can be healed, restored and satisfied. There is a life worth living. It's not in getting the surface things we want, and it's not in going back to a better or simpler time. It's in relationship with the God who loves us as we are, not as we should be, who loves us so much He became a baby born in a barn and grew into a man who died in our place so that His power could be ours. His Spirit makes us His and lives within us to do for us what we never could on our own. If He is sought, He will be found, and He will provide what we need to have that inner emptiness of lack and want satisfied.
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