What do you want?

In, The Big Necessity, the author talks about how difficult it is to change people's habits. Since the whole book is about sanitation, you can guess which habits we're talking about. If not, read the book. Anyway, she talks about the fact that you can't get anyone to change their ways by talking to them about what they should do--doctors who smoke being the prime example. Instead, you have to connect with them about what they want to do, not what they should do. When you it say it out loud, that sounds like a 'duh' statement, but somehow we seem to miss it most of the time. Talking to kids, talking to friends, talking to co-workers, talking to spouses, and especially, preachers talking to congregations always seem to want to start with should instead of want. What are we thinking? Well, obviously we aren't thinking at all or we would know better. All we have to do is look at our own new year's resolutions. They are almost always about should, and they just fall by the wayside. But we don't even need to make resolutions to go after what we want, we just do it.
So, what do the people in the pews want? What do we all want from God? What 'want' brings us to church? Some want to know, not just think or believe that their souls are secure. Some want peace. Some want comfort. We all want to know we are loved. We don't want to just think about God, believe God. We want to feel God. We want to know God. Makes this week's sermon start to look all different.