A core desire is something that burns inside of you. It is something that you intensely wish and desire in life or from the Lord. This is a lot more than visualization.

What if I were to ask you right now,

"What is your greatest desire? What do you desire more than anything else?"

If you now have to close your eyes and try and visualize it, I don't think it is core desire yet. It has to be something far deeper than that. It must be something that has been burning in you for years.

It is a dream that you have had for a long time. You have visualized and seen this thing in vision. Pictures keep popping up in your mind, and everywhere you turn you see this thing. That is a core desire.

Illustration of a Core Desire

There is a story that is told that I believe illustrates this very nicely. The story goes of a young man who really wanted to succeed. He seemed to battle in everything that he did, and he thought,

"If I can just find out the key principles of success, I know that if I did them I would succeed."

He saw a man who had risen up in the community. He was wealthy and highly successful, and the young man thought,

"If only I could get to meet this man and ask him what the secret to his success is, maybe I can find that secret and finally become successful."

The trouble was he couldn't get to this man. There were always people around him because he was high up.

But one day fate stepped in if you want to see it from the world's point of view. He just happened to go past a river and saw the man fishing so he thought,

"Here's my chance; he's all alone."

The young man walked carefully up to him and said,

"Is it alright if I speak with you?"

The guy turned to him and said,

"Yes sure."

He said, "You know I have wanted to meet you for so long. And I just want to ask you one simple question. What is the main key to your success?"

The old man looked at him and smiled. He put his rod down and he said,

"Come with me."

Then he stepped into the river and said,

"Come on, follow me."

The young man stepped into the river with him. And as they did so, suddenly the old man took the young guy and shoved his head under the water. The guy was struggling but the old man held him there under the water for a long time.

He pulled him out then and the young man was gasping for air. When he had got his breath back again, the old man pushed him under the water again for a bit longer. He didn't do it long enough so that he could drown, but long enough so that he could really struggle.

At last he let the young guy out and they walked out of the river. The young man lay on the bank of the river panting for about 15 or 20 minutes, trying to get his breath back. Then he said to the old man,

"What was that all about?"

The old man said,

"I will answer your question on the key to success. But first you must answer my question. When you were there in the water and I was holding you under it, what was the most important thing in your mind? What was the greatest desire that you had right then?"

He answered, "To be able to get some air and breathe."

He said, "Exactly; and when your desire for success is as strong as your desire was right then to get a breath of fresh air, then you will succeed."

A Consuming Passion

It is a very simple little principle. How strong is your desire? Is it so consuming that you can think of nothing else?

Well when that guy was under the water he was thinking of only one thing,

"I need a breath of fresh air. If only I could get some fresh air."

He wasn't worrying about success any more. He wasn't worrying about anything in the water. He was just worried about one thing.

He had one desire that was consuming him right then. And he was going to do everything in his power to get that breath of fresh air.

So if you want to find out whether you have a core desire or not, let me ask you this question,

"Do you have a desire that drives you to the same extent as what this man faced when he was under the water?"

The Importance of Speech

If you don't have that desire, then you may have a strong desire, but you do not have a core desire. A core desire is a consuming passion. It is something you think about all the time. It is also something you are going to talk about.

Talking about it helps, because when we speak words they come up from our spirits. Words are always colored by what comes from our spirits. Only human beings can speak, because only human beings have spirits.

Animals can't speak words because they don't have a spirit. This means that when you are speaking words, those words are actually connected with your spirit that is within. And when you speak words, that inner influence coming up from your spirit starts to control your mind.

Those words start to control your mind, and while you are speaking you are seeing. While you are speaking, the pictures are forming in your mind.

So if you have a desire, one of the ways to keep that desire very strongly in your mind until it becomes a consuming passion, is to talk about it all the time. Eventually people will be saying,

"You know I'm tired of hearing you talk about this thing that you're going to do. Will you please shut up about it and talk about something else."

You say, "No, I have to talk about it."

A Picture of Passion

There was a young boy who really wanted a watch for his birthday. He was nagging his mom and dad endlessly for the watch and saying,

"Please can I have a watch; please can I have a watch."

Eventually his dad said,

"Look, I'm sick and tired of hearing about the watch. If I hear you ask for that watch once again you're not going to get it, okay?"

The poor guy really wanted to talk about it but it was such a strain not to. Then one day they had family devotions and his dad said,

"Johnny, you can read the Scripture tonight. Read us a Scripture."

He knew straight away which Scripture it was. It was the one that says,

What I say unto one, I say unto all. Watch.

He got the message across, and they couldn't judge him because it was Scripture, right? You see it was so strong in him and such a passion in him, he couldn't stop talking about it.

Give it Time

Do you have such a core desire? Are you talking all the time about what you desire; about what you are going to do when you get the desire and how things are going to be when you have it?

Are you doing this to the point where people are getting tired of hearing it? If this is the case it is a good thing. It is a consuming passion.

Once you get there, just give it a little bit of time. This is because you may find your desire changing a little bit. It could change a bit as you grow older or as your circumstances such as your work changes.

As your spiritual life grows and you become more mature, you may find that your desire gets a bit modified. But eventually you can see that this thing is burning hot inside of you. It has taken years to develop, and you know that this is not going to leave you.

Number of Core Desires

How many of these desires should you have?

Well it is not easy to have that kind of passion for a whole pile of desires is it?

You should have preferably one main core desire. You may be able to manage another one or two at the most of slightly lesser desires. But if there is to be one core desire it will need to be 100%.

Start to work on those desires first. Get your core desire – the apple core. Once you have that core desire, you now have a starting point to fulfilling and harvesting that desire.

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