Desires During March Madness

The NCAA Tournament begins this week, and the yearly tradition of filling out a bracket is underway. Be sure to join our bracket challenge HERE!

As we approach our brackets, each matchup requires us to decide what team to pick. Sure, we’re supposed to pick the team we think will win, but when we make our selections, our desires greatly influence us.

So often, we fill out a bracket based on who we selfishly want to win each game. We pick the teams we hope will win. Yes, those who take the brackets seriously wrestle back and forth between who to choose, and that tends to be a battle between making the wiser pick and the one that’s based on what we desire.

Some of us hope to see upsets and underdogs making a run, so our picks will reflect that. If we are fans of a particular team, we desire them to win, which will drive us to pick them to go far. If we dislike a certain team or coach, we hope they will lose, so we pick them to do that.

Over the next couple of days, we will also listen to others, especially those on TV, who will tell us who they are picking. Many will make similar choices as we desire to align our brackets with the consensus selections the college basketball world is telling us to make.

Of course, none of us know what will happen during the tournament, and that’s the madness. We want our favorite teams to win and want to fill out the best bracket we can, so we have conflicting desires, wants, and hopes that influence our decisions.

Ultimately, we must decide if our greater desire is to have the best bracket with the right selections or if we want to fill out a bracket that includes all the teams we selfishly desire to win.

Every day, we face a similar question, and our conflicting desires influence our choices. Do we want to live the best life by making the right selections according to God and His wisdom, or do we want to make decisions based on our selfish desires?

As followers of Jesus, our greatest desire should be to know and love Him. Every day, we desire to please God, obey Him, and make the right choices based on His will and commands.

While we seek God and delight in Him, He will give us the right desires aligned with Him, which will be granted.

Psalm 37:4 (ESV) says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Proverbs 10:24 (NIV) adds, “What the wicked dread will overtake them; what the righteous desire will be granted.”

The challenge is that we are often consumed with selfish desires and make decisions based on what we want to do. We don’t make wise choices but instead make “selections” based on misguided desires.

Galatians 5:16-17 (NIV) encourages us to avoid that by saying, “…walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”

Along with this conflict, we are also influenced to make decisions based on what the world tells us and the consensus of what everyone else is doing.

However, 1 John 2:15-17 (ESV) warns us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

The encouragement for us is to make Jesus our greatest desire and declare Psalm 73:25 (NLT): “Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth.”

Today, as we desire Him more than anything, He will influence us to make wise decisions while we remain on the right path to victory.  

(Even though it’s unlikely that our favorite team will win and our bracket will win too, the good news is when Jesus is our favorite and we pick Him, we know we always win with Him.)

I’m Bryce Johnson, and you can UNPACK that!

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, please show me how I can delight in You more and more. I pray that I desire You above all else. I want to know, love, experience, and obey You. Thank you for giving me the right desires and helping me make wise decisions. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.