Appetites are Good
Because a physical body is so central to the Father’s plan of happiness and our spiritual development, Lucifer seeks to frustrate our progression by tempting us to use our bodies improperly. President Russell M. Nelson has taught that spiritual safety ultimately lies in “‘never taking the first enticing step toward going where you should not go and doing what you should not do.’ … As human beings we all have [physical] appetites necessary for our survival. ‘These appetites are absolutely essential for the perpetuation of life. So, what does the adversary do? … He attacks us through our appetites. He tempts us to eat things we should not eat, to drink things we should not drink, and to love as we should not love!’”10
One of the ultimate ironies of eternity is that the adversary, who is miserable precisely because he has no physical body, invites and entices us to share in his misery through the improper use of our bodies. The very tool he does not have and cannot use is thus the primary target of his attempts to lure us to physical and spiritual destruction.
-thus Elder Bednar,
Your appetites are good. Satan attacks them for the same reason he attacks anything great and beautiful.
Embrace your appetites . . . but refine them.
A man should be able to feast and fast.
Embrace your appetites . . . but embrace all of them. Your desire to be in control of yourself is also an appetite. Your appetite tomorrow is also an appetite. The man who indulges himself in appetites today to the extreme, ruining his appetites tomorrow, does not enjoy his appetites more than anyone else. Over time, he enjoys them much less.
Integrate your appetities. If you started as a hedonist but did not artificially limit your appetites to just a few–if you determined to enjoy them all–and if you determined to enjoy them all for as long as you possibly could–you would eventually end up at the gospel.
A man who never fasts is a cripple.
A man who never feasts is a cripple.
Filed under: Deseret Review | Tags: LDS, the gospel of victory
Jared Hancock
April 23, 2020
I liked when you said ‘Embrace your appetites…but refine them.’
I think it’s good to be honest with yourself.
It sometimes helps to remember what God wants you to become. It also sometimes helps to accept where you are.
Thanks for this post.
G.
April 23, 2020
I appreciate the encouragement.
E.C.
April 23, 2020
I second Jared Hancock. I needed this reminder today, that appetites aren’t evil of themselves, but need refining. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters, “[God] is a hedonist”. He made us to have appetites and desires for all kinds of things; he only hopes that we will satisfy them in the way most designed to bring joy.
Sute
April 23, 2020
Appetites are to be kept within bounds set by the Lord.
Notice who sets the boundary – the Lord. Not our rationalizing intellect that can justify virtually any appetite.
That important qualification should always be highlighted.
Talkingbuffalo
April 24, 2020
It’s a good reminder that Alma counseled his son to “bridle all your passions” and not to put them to death.
Bob H.
April 24, 2020
What if he really meant bridal your passions.
You know, like an awkward honeymoon.
CS Lewis
April 24, 2020
Everyone knows that the sexual appetite, like our other appetites, grows by indulgence. Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations
Aristotle
April 24, 2020
Everything, too, is pleasant for which we have the desire within us, since desire is the craving for pleasure. Of the desires some are irrational, some associated with reason. By irrational I mean those which do not arise from any opinion held by the mind. Of this kind are those known as ‘natural’; for instance, those originating in the body, such as the desire for nourishment, namely hunger and thirst, and a separate kind of desire answering to each kind of nourishment; and the desires connected with taste and sex and sensations of touch in general; and those of smell, hearing, and vision. Rational desires are those which we are induced to have; there are many things we desire to see or get because we have been told of them and induced to believe them good.
The OG Buddha
April 24, 2020
The sage who’s fully quenched rests at ease in every way; no sense desire adheres to him whose fires have cooled, deprived of fuel. All attachments have been severed, the heart’s been led away from pain; tranquil, he rests with utmost ease. The mind has found its way to peace.
He who sits alone, sleeps alone, and walks alone, who is strenuous and subdues himself alone, will find delight in the solitude of the forest.
Do not turn away what is given you, nor reach out for what is given to others, lest you disturb your quietness.