Desire

by Bob A. Clifton

In the 2006 movie “Rescue Dawn” based on a true story of Dieter Dengler, you get a glimpse of what desire can be about. Dieter was a German born citizen that in a senseless act of bad coordinates and heavy cloud cover his town in Black Forest is bombed. In the midst of this bombing one of the diver fighter pilots flew within feet of his home. In a brief exchange of glares Dieter met eye to eye with the man flying the war plane. Something about that exchange from his third floor attic bedroom convinced Dieter that he wanted to be a fighter pilot.
Dieter moved to the United States not knowing any English and had very little money. Dieter learned English and became a Navy fighter pilot. In 1965, forty minutes into Dieters first flight over Lous in Vietnam he was shot down. This is where the true story or heroism begins. Interrogated and abused as a prisoner, Dieter never lost his spirit.
The scene that impacted me the most was many days into his capture by Vietnamese military he was talking to a fellow American in the prison. Both starved because of small rations of food looked miserable, until the American asked him why he became a Navy fighter pilot. All of the sudden Dieter lights up and tells the story of the German fighter pilots flying over his home. All hunger and resentment of his capture was lost as he retold the story of his desire! His desire to become a fighter pilot led to a great heroic story that is worth the watch.
Desire led me to be a counselor. Before I was a believer I dated a young lady who had a father that worked at Menninger’s and a mother that was a Social Worker. I sat and listened to countless stories for hours of counseling. I could not explain it but I was fascinated with counseling and what it had to offer someone trapped in a place mentally they don’t want to be. Sixteen years old and struggling with maintaining the maturity of a seven year old I thought no way! Sparing you of the ups and downs, at thirty two years old I graduated with a Masters Degree as a Marriage Family Therapist and a relationship with Jesus Christ that humbles me daily. God indeed wants us to have desire.
Desire flowed through Peter’s life. I have grown to relate to and appreciate Peter. Peter had more things to say in the bible than all of the other apostles put together. Often we find Peter in these crazy predicaments. Walking on water, bad fishing, and poor swordsmanship; seem to plague Peter from reaching the authentic Christian life. Maybe not? As I journey in my faith farther what is the essence of Peter’s ministry that I appreciate is his willingness to take risk. I get the idea that risk has a lot to do with desire.
In a early book by John Eldredge called “Desire” he says “we all know the dilemma of desire, how awful it feels to open our hearts to joy, only to have grief come in. They go together. We know that. What we don’t know is what to do with it, how to live in this world with desire so deep in us.” Anyone you know that has given up on their desire because of how many things have gone wrong in their life? Maybe there family did not raise them to think of desire as a noble quality of character. Maybe they were shamed when they explained what they desired. Do we hold out on forming relationships because they might be taken from us? How about love, do we refuse love because it has only hurt to love in the past?
I heard once that the modern day American church is a great place to warehouse Christians. Keep them comfortable and keep them from dreaming and the most effective strategy to keep the gospel from entering the world has been executed. What helped Dieter be the only American prisoner to escape from the north Vietnamese prison camps was his optimism and loyalty. I think we need to consider waking that optimism of the gospel up in our fellow believers. What do your brothers and sisters in Christ desire? What makes them come alive?