3 Ways to Discern Desire as Women of God
WRITTEN BY: AMBER TREMBLETT
What do you want?
It’s a question that begs a lot of other questions.
Like, how do you feel when you read this question? Does it stir feelings of excitement, or confusion, or guilt? Is it a question you know how to answer? Or, perhaps more poignantly, do you believe the answer to this question even matters?
This is the question that greeted me in a meeting with my spiritual director at the end of 2023. We were discussing all the complexities involved in a difficult decision I had to make as a pastor. I rambled on and on about what all the people around me wanted and expected from me until my spiritual director stopped me mid-sentence and asked this hard but simple question.
“What do you want?”
And finally words escaped me. I felt tears well up in my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been asked this question. It hadn’t even occurred to me that my answer to it n even mattered.
Once I reflected on what I wanted, the decision was easy, my path forward was clear, but I was still hesitant to commit because it meant putting my desires before the desires of others. Somewhere along the road of making this decision I’d gotten the impression that putting my desires before others was wrong… especially as a pastor, especially as a Christian, and especially as a woman.
The truth of our history, particularly in the church, is that any mistake—or even perceived mistake—that a woman makes is amplified 10-fold. We are taught, whether implicitly or explicitly, that we are responsible for the emotions and behaviors of others.
Consequently, women have learned that we must prioritize the feelings and behaviors of others over our own. To simply do what we actually want would mean running the risk of being perceived as selfish—or worse, being written off alongside Eve, who ate the apple and influenced Adam to do the same.
Misguided by patriarchy, irresponsible interpretations of biblical women have perpetuated the theological and cultural belief that all female desire is bad.
The Biblical Truth About Desire
I did not grow up in an environment that outwardly or knowingly believed any of this. Nonetheless, it has shaped my relationship with desire—the relationship that I am now committed to healing.
This healing starts by proclaiming what scripture actually says about women and desire. Let’s look at a couple examples together.
A Woman Healed
In Mark 5, a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years hears that Jesus is coming to her village. Facing potential public condemnation for venturing into town despite her unclean state, she seeks out Jesus. She wants nothing more than to see him, to touch him. She says, “if I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
This woman desired Jesus’s healing power. She risked what little community she had left to get it. And Jesus honored her desire. His response? “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
The Syrophoenician Woman
Two chapters later, in Mark 7, we meet the Syrophoenician woman. This woman comes to Jesus because she has heard about his miracles, specifically his ability to cast out demons. She wants Jesus to cast out the unclean spirit that resides within her daughter. The only problem is that this woman and her daughter are not members of the tribes of Israel. They were seemingly outside Jesus’ mission field.
In a curious exchange, Jesus says to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But the mother replies, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s morsels.” She had faith that Jesus could give her what she so desperately desired, the healing of her child. And her confident persistence is not lost on Jesus, who honors her desire and heals her daughter.
Jesus rewards the women in both of these passages for being confident and persistent in pursuing what they want. These narratives give us the picture of a compassionate Jesus who listens to his followers—men or women—when they express their desires.
And we see that picture repeated all throughout scripture. In the story of the persistent widow; in the book of Esther, the heroine Queen; in the story of Rahab, the hider of spies; in the persistent prayer of Hannah, the mother of Samuel.
None of these women gave up on their desires, yet all of these women are universally accepted as mothers of the Christian faith.
As children of God, whether we recognize it or not, our deepest desire will always be to dwell in God’s presence. And it is through the fulfilling of this desire that we discover what other desires God has set in our souls and written on our hearts. Not only that, but it is also our dwelling with God which allows us to feel safe enough to voice these desires.
Whatever your journey to God has been, it is the deepening of this relationship that will reveal to you the gifts and desires God has given you, that God wants for you.
God cares about what we want. Quite simply because God is the one who forms every part of our soul.
3 Ways to Discern Desire
So, as we come out of agreement with the patriarchal notions that paint all female desire as evil, we must also learn how to discern which desires are truly God-given. With that in mind, here are three ways to discern your God-given desires.
1. Cultivate your relationship with God.
Create a routine that incorporates time alone with God. It can include reading scripture, your favorite prayer practice, meditation, journaling, spending time in nature, or anything else that draws you closer to God.
Whatever it is, make sure you cultivate a practice that you miss when you neglect it, and that provides space for you to hear the voice of God. We cannot discern what God has placed on our hearts without making time for him first.
2. Test your desires against scripture.
Consider not just what you want, but why you want it. What are the motives behind your desire? Is it to share God’s love? To engage your creativity? To be part of a community? To rest?
For a long time, I ignored my desire to write, feeling guilty and thinking I shouldn’t want it so badly. But when I realized that nothing in scripture opposed my motives, I began to pursue it.
On the other hand, if we find that our motives clash with God’s ways—like chasing after wealth, mistreating our neighbors, or running from God—that’s a good sign that we should hold off on pursuing those desires for a while, keeping in mind that this is an ongoing process. Our motivations change all the time. We need to stay aware of when our desires may be bringing to light motivations that do not serve God or our life in Christ.
Here are some scriptures that are helpful in this endeavor:
John 15 - Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. As we discern our desires, this passage reminds us that as long as we are rooted in Christ, we will bear his fruit.
Romans 12:9-21 - Paul reminds us that in surrendering ourselves to Christ we are able to discern the will of God. His words also encourage us to pay attention to the gifts God has given us, as together we all build up the body of Christ.
Proverbs 16 - These verses give us good guidance on what should motivate our desires, giving us sacred words to take to prayer.
3. Talk to people you trust.
Whether it be a spiritual director, pastor, friend, partner, or all of the above, telling trusted people (who are also cultivating their relationship with God) what we want can help us feel worthy to pursue it. We hear God’s love spoken over us in the voices of the people we love. Family, friends, and mentors can often see through our biases, giving us a clearer picture of our lives and how our desires fit into them.
They can also hold us accountable to our desires. If we have trouble acknowledging our God-given desires, they can be the visible, audible reminder of God’s voice, encouraging and pushing us to pursue our passions. If we have a tendency to stray beyond the boundaries God has given us, they can remind us to return to ourselves and to God. Christian discernment thrives in community, not isolation.
Christian discernment thrives in community, not isolation.
I know that it will take some time for me to fully heal my relationship with desire. But that will not stop me from fighting against the narrative that pastors— or women—are evil, or selfish, or un-Christian because they dare to have dreams, dare to want something for their lives, or dare to live into the gifts and desires God has given them.
Women, it’s time to stop believing what we’ve historically been told. What we want matters. What God wants for us matters. It’s time to embrace the truth that desire is not evil.
What would it look like if we started pursuing our desires like the bleeding woman, or the Syrophoenician woman, or all the women in scripture who never stopped bringing their desires to God? What would it look like to take off shame and clothe ourselves in love and grace instead?
Because when we are confident in what we want from our lives and ministries—from our callings—God empowers us to seek it out in his name. In doing this we bring his kingdom to earth. And God is glorified.
So, what do you want?
As you reflect on this question, may you find the courage to discern your God-given desires, and pursue them.
About the Author
Amber Tremblett is a full-time Anglican priest in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Besides writing, she expresses her creativity through crocheting and figure skating. She loves to read and is an avid consumer of book-related social media content. Amber's favourite place to rest is by the ocean.
If you’d like to read more of Amber’s writing, she has been published in Clayjar Review, and she runs a personal blog, which you can find at amberiswriting.wordpress.com.