The Desire to be Chosen

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Mark Laaser

Every fantasy.

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Mark Laaser

Is a reflection.

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Mark Laaser

Of an unmet need and desire of the heart, so that sometimes we fantasize about things that we imagine would meet the need to be, in this case, chosen. And there are, like this writer talks about, there are certain sexual fantasies, sexual practices, sexual experiences that that virtually really symbolize the ultimate form of being chosen. And we can come to overvalue them and, interpret, you know, sexual guesses and so forth to be ways that we personally feel chosen.

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Mark Laaser

So I think this is a wonderful testimony at the end that if we really are working on deeper intimacy with our spouse, and we are really working to choose them by including them in our feelings, our thoughts, our behaviors, our actions. Not lying, but telling the truth and all of that. And our spouses, you know, likewise in kind, being open and honest and intimate with us.

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Mark Laaser

It will take away the need for all inappropriate fantasies because we are, at that level, feeling chosen at a very deeply intimate, both spiritual.

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Mark Laaser

And emotional.

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Randy Evert

Welcome to the podcast. So, Randy, every year co-host, if you had a podcast presentation taken from your seven desires collection features doctor Mark Glaser, and today's podcast is the desire to be chosen. Mark did a fantastic job with each of the seven desires in this series, and we're sure that you will enjoy this podcast as well. So here now is doctor Mark Lazar and me as we present you with the seven desires, the desire to be chosen.

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Mark Laaser

Today we are going to Randy be covering the Sixth Desire.

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Randy Evert

The Six of Seven desires, and this series seems to be flying by for us. And we're getting some very encouraging comments based on this new series and tell our audience what the sixth of seven desires is today.

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Mark Laaser

Well, and let me preface this by saying that the desires are in no necessary order of importance, just tends to be how we think about them. But the sixth desire is the desire to be chosen.

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Randy Evert

Okay.

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Mark Laaser

Now I think one of the easiest ways to start thinking about this desire is that many of us, I think, have memories from our past of times when we felt left out that we didn't belong, that we had been excluded from something, that there was a group of people who did get chosen for something, and we did not.

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Mark Laaser

It could be anything from a sports team, a seat in the lunch cafeteria, a club fraternity, a sorority. You know, those kinds of things where we felt not chosen for something. We didn't get the prize, we didn't get selected, we didn't get picked up, could be out in the playground, and we didn't get picked for the team. Or, you know, there's just so many different times in our life, I think, when we've been up against wanting to be chosen for something and not being chosen.

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Randy Evert

And I think that's one of those desires that starts to be evident from a very young age in our lives, where, you know, some of the other desires that we've been talking about. You might not be relevant in your adolescent years, but this particular one really feels to me like you start taking note of this desire right away.

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Mark Laaser

Yeah, I think it's a desire that because it is so natural, and that's a point that we've been making about all seven of these desires, that they are desires that God has put inside of us, so that we remember that we need to be connected to God, and we need to be connected to each other. And there are certain things that we desire that will push us in the direction of that kind of connection.

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Mark Laaser

We also need to remind our listeners of something we've been talking about that God says us that if we delight in the Lord. This is Psalm 137, verse four, he will grant us the desires of our heart. So I think they all start early, you know, the desire to be heard and understood, affirmed, blessed, safe, touch. Those are the ones we've covered so far.

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Mark Laaser

And this one, I think, starts early. Also. It starts on the playground, starts in preschool. It starts in our families. You know, we we desire to be chosen, to be wanted, to be longed for. In a way, I we think, Debbie and I think that this is the desire behind that inherent need we have for even monogamy and marriage.

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Mark Laaser

We want to be the only one in someone else's life. We want to be the special friend. What is this thing that people use when they tweet or something called BFF, best friend.

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Randy Evert

Best friends forever.

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Mark Laaser

Best friends forever? So, you know, I remember our daughter, for example, had a best friend in the neighborhood. They had these little lockets with half a heart, and the other half, the other one wore the other half. I mean, we had this desire, I think, to be a special friend. The only friend. And I think when we get older, that translates into the desire to be in a monogamous type of marriage and that kind of thing.

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Randy Evert

Well, you certainly do want to feel like you are more than just a special friend. When you're talking about your spouse, you hope that that's a situation that never changes throughout your years of marriage. You'd love to have that reassurance that you are your spouse's chosen one.

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Mark Laaser

That's right. And dare we make the comment here in the opening part of our show today that when some of us have chosen to be unfaithful, you know, even if it's just looking at pornography or in worst case scenario, having across the flesh line physical, sexual affairs with other people, we are trampling over this deep desire that we all have to be the only one in another person's life.

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Mark Laaser

One of my favorite persons to comment on this without necessarily participating in our system. But John Wartburg, who used to be at Willow Creek and now is at his own church out in the San Francisco Bay area. He talks about we all long for a culture of two. So, like, when we're dating, we establish our favorite songs, our favorite places to go, our favorite sayings, our nicknames for each other.

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Mark Laaser

You know, those kinds of things. That's establishing that culture of two. And you know how many of us can relate to the angst that starts developing even in pre adolescence? Will there ever be a person of the opposite sex that will be attracted to us, that will want to be with us, that will be open to dancing with us at the junior high dance or going with us to the prom or whatever else it is, and then eventually, of course, being chosen as a marriage partner.

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Mark Laaser

This is a this is a real deep desire that has many manifestations to it.

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Randy Evert

Right? And I'm excited about this particular desire coming up for the show today because, a very short while ago, one of our regular listeners was kind enough to share his personal experience with this particular desire came unsolicited, came out of nowhere. But I know that this individual is a regular listener for us. And after we go to break and when we come back, I'm going to share this with our listeners, because I think it's right on point with with this desire.

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Mark Laaser

Good enough. Before we get to break, why don't we just challenge our listeners to also think about the strategies that we've had to be chosen? So the desire inherent in all of us to be chosen by others and to be chosen eventually by one person in marriage, has a lot of different possible dynamics in terms of what will we do in order to be chosen.

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Mark Laaser

So this can go to I remember clearly back in grade school, even wanting to wear the same kind of clothes that everyone was wearing, having the right tennis shoes or I suppose there now called athletic shoes, having the right kind of jeans back in our day, having the right kind of shirts, sweaters or whatever the apparel was that was in we all longed to wear that, hairstyles.

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Mark Laaser

For women, of course, there's the the various fashions, the various makeups, the various kinds of hairdos or whatever else is currently in fashion that what links do we go to, you know, to be chosen as being part of the in-group or in crowd? I think even more importantly than that, there's that part of us that will sometimes run counter to our own ideas of what is moral and immoral.

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Mark Laaser

We may say yes to doing things that we don't really want to do, but we're afraid that if we don't say yes to those things, we won't be chosen, right?

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Randy Evert

You're doing all of this for acceptance. I myself find myself just longing for hair, you know? Well.

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Mark Laaser

Yeah, but unfortunately, in your case. You're married. And to a lovely woman who accepts you just the way you are. And that's what really being chosen is all about. Well.

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Randy Evert

I guess so. And and her feeling eyesight. Really. That helps to have that works. That works in my favor. Thank you. I, I.

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Mark Laaser

Hope she's not listening. No. She's been in terms of failing eyesight.

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Randy Evert

She she she's not. And as she tries to tell me now, you know, she thinks I'm, I'm more handsome today than I was 23 years ago when we first met. So I wanted to share with you an email that we received from one of our loyal listeners. I won't identify the gentleman, but he is one of our loyal listeners.

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Randy Evert

As I said, he addresses this. Dear Mark and Randy, I've been listening intently in the morning as you discussed the seven desires on the Men of Valor program. My wife and I have really learned the importance of the seven desires as we have worked through our recovery, and I wanted to share my story on the seven desires and being chosen and included for me.

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Randy Evert

When I was young, in junior high and high school, I was part of a friend group that meant very much to me. The group had three guys and one girl. Well, these friends meant everything to me. They were the gods of my youth. They were my nice friends. They were smart, they were talented. And I would describe them as the kind of friends that your teachers and parents would want you to be hanging out with.

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Randy Evert

Well, the one girl in our group started dating and I became jealous and was in. That was very obvious to my other friends. To make a long story short, we got together every Friday night to do things. I was calling around one night and all three of them were busy, and there was not really a good story coming from any of them about what was going on.

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Randy Evert

Well, that struck me as extremely odd, since I had nothing to do that night, and feeling a little odd about not hanging out with my regular friends, I jumped in my car. I drove past the girls house, the girl from my group of friends where we hung out most of the time on a Friday night, and several cars had just pulled into her driveway.

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Randy Evert

I saw a heads hanging out of windows and yelling and laughing as they had just arrived at her house. I vividly remember how much fun they were having, and I had this vivid mental picture of the exact scene as when I first saw them. I think the first thing I felt was, wow, there's my friends. I remember my car stopping in the street outside her house.

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Randy Evert

Then the gravity of what was going on hit me. They had planned this event with her new boyfriend and the rest of my regular friends, and I was not included. I was not invited. I did not feel chosen for the next 15 years. I could remember that event and tears would roll down my cheeks. I lived in the pain of that event for many years.

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Randy Evert

The people that meant the most to me had hurt me by not including and not choosing me. Well, we did work through the events as kids and young friends often do, but the hurt and the pain remained for many years. Fast forward to my addiction. Well, there are some specific sexual fantasies and sexual acts that I believe are clearly more symbolic of being chosen and included.

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Randy Evert

I describe them as ultimate ways of feeling, chosen and included. Well, since my wife and I are in a good spot of emotional honesty, we have discussed the seven desires with each other quite a bit. My wife also has a high desire to be included for different pain reasons than mine. I try to serve her by including her in my thoughts and feelings.

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Randy Evert

Likewise, my wife tries to choose and include me in non-sexual ways. The result to me is that it has lessened the hold of my ultimate fantasies within me.

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Mark Laaser

And that's a really powerful example of everything that we teach here. Not everything, but certainly one of the main principles we teach is that every fantasy is a reflection of an unmet need and desire of the heart, so that sometimes we fantasize about things that we imagine would meet the need to be, in this case, chosen. And there are, like this writer talks about, there are certain sexual fantasies, sexual practices, sexual experiences that that virtually really symbolize the ultimate form of being chosen.

00;14;30;26 - 00;15;13;04

Mark Laaser

And we can come to overvalue them and, interpret, you know, sexual guesses and so forth to be ways that we personally feel chosen. So I think this is a wonderful testimony at the end that if we really are working on deeper intimacy with our spouse, and we are really working to choose them by including them in our feelings, our thoughts, our behaviors, our actions, not lying, but telling the truth and all of that, and our spouses, you know, likewise in kind, being open and honest and intimate with us, it will take away the need for all inappropriate fantasies because we are, at that level, feeling chosen at a very deeply intimate, both spiritual and

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Mark Laaser

emotional level.

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Randy Evert

Well, I appreciated that by sharing his personal story here. First of all, it is what you referenced earlier in the show when when you had said that this like the other desires, this one can really be relevant early on. And he he referenced that this group of friends were his his junior high and high school friends. But here he is in adulthood and still vividly remembers, you know, this, this desire to be included and to be chosen by his group of friends.

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Mark Laaser

Well, it was very sad, wasn't it, when he was describing how long it took him really to begin to recover from that one experience, which is interesting, even though the friends evidently worked it through at some point and talked, talked it out. And, maybe they matured in their high school relationships and were able to remain friends and so forth.

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Mark Laaser

Those experiences like that, they do kind of get emblazoned in your brain. They do get imprinted is another word. We sometimes use neuroscientific, and we start making associations about ourselves and about others and about God even. And so these, these, these kind of common I mean, I think a lot of people can relate to this experience. You know, you drive down the block and you notice someone else is having a party and you're not invited, right?

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Randy Evert

What's wrong with this picture? I'm not there.

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Mark Laaser

Yeah, that's exactly it. And I think, like I said earlier, some of that goes back to even very early times before we get to the end of our show today, I do think we want to emphasize the fact that sometimes this whole desire that we have will lead to some very poor moral choices as we're looking to be chosen.

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Mark Laaser

How many people out there would relate to, for example, smoking? I know that, there are people that I've talked to that said that they were, you know, 13, 14, 15 when they started smoking and it was because someone else handed them a cigarette and challenged them, and they wanted to feel a part of the group, and they wanted to be chosen.

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Mark Laaser

So they engaged in that kind of behavior. Do we need to talk about alcohol? You know, and remember that a lot of people, initially don't really like the taste of liquor or for that matter, the taste of smoking, but they engage in both drinking and, and other behaviors because it helps them to feel chosen.

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Randy Evert

They want to be included in that group of friends that are doing the same thing. When you and Debbie are counseling couples then, and you so often so effectively teach them about the seven desires, how is it that you translate this desire in your teachings on it to them as a couple?

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Mark Laaser

Well, in addition to the spiritual journey, I think that this represents in terms of, you know, do we not need to remember that, in our Christian beliefs, we have this definite faith that God has in fact chosen us. We talk about the fact in the Old Testament that the Jewish people at that point were what they were, God's chosen people, and he had a very special covenant with them, which is generally called the Abraham Covenant.

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Mark Laaser

So the Jews for those early centuries were God's chosen people. We believe as Christians that they still are God's chosen people. And at the same time. With sending his own son, Jesus. God has also chosen to open up his salvation to everyone. And it's not just a specific group of people, but God's salvation is open to everyone.

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Mark Laaser

Now, as God has chosen us, we also need to choose that back. That's part of the New covenant that the New Testament talks about, that is represented in an act of communion. An act of communion is, the new covenant of Jesus, the body and blood that we celebrate during the Sacramento, the Eucharist.

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Randy Evert

It it's so interesting because, so often when you are working with someone who is apparently, suffering with some low self-esteem, this is someone who most definitely is experiencing a lack of being chosen, a lack of being included. And I think that when you realize that we have been chosen by God, what an empowering feeling of if you're looking to feel confident, stop and realize that God has chosen you and and that that puts a whole new light on how you should be looking at your own self-worth.

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Mark Laaser

That's exactly it. And that's a lot of how we work with individuals. You were asking a question about working with couples. Well, you know, the the the basis of working with couples is for the individuals in a couple ship to know that they are, in fact, chosen and they are valued and that they are precious children of God.

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Mark Laaser

So now, having talked about that, then we really try to work with couples to help them know how they can honor the exclusivity of their relationship. And for our men that we work with, we're going to be talking to them and teaching them a lot about healthy boundaries and not having emotional, even conversations with other women that they would not have with their wife, or even if they would have them with their wife.

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Mark Laaser

It's an exclusive level of intimacy that they're not sharing with other people. So a lot of the work that we do with couples is teaching them how to shepherd their own relationship, nurture their own relationship, protect their own relationship, allow it to be special. We we encourage them to go out and have, you know, a vision together of lots of things, from finances to how they parent to how they have fun together.

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Mark Laaser

That's one of our favorite categories. I mean, couples who are in an exclusive, we choose only each other relationship, know how to go out and have fun together. So there's a lot of different ways to do this, but it's an inherently important thing in our field that we are we are honoring the God designed monogamy that he calls us to.

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Randy Evert

Well, let's wrap up today's show then, as you so eloquently do on a regular basis, take today's desire and and give us a closing thought on it.

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Mark Laaser

Well, just to return to truth, you are chosen. God chooses you. You are his special son or daughter. And don't ever forget that I don't care what you've done in your past, there's nothing that separates you from the love of God. That's biblical truth. Now also, if you have some hurtful experiences in the past, find authentic and healthy community to talk about it so that you can get through it and grieve it.

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Mark Laaser

And then I would just challenge all of our listeners to be very cognizant this week of valuing the friendships you do have and valuing very much the marital relationship you're in so that you can demonstrate to each other on a daily basis that you choose each other.

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Randy Evert

Thank you for joining us today on the Faithful and True podcast. We have enjoyed presenting this presentation of the Seven Desires series. The desire to be chosen if you have interest in additional resources or we would send you to our website, faithful and true.com, where you'll find lots of information and you'll find lots of opportunities to access additional podcasts from this series and many others.

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Randy Evert

In the meantime, we hope that you will find the resources on our website that will be helpful to you, as well as the opportunity to connect with faithful and true, as our center is here to help those who struggle with sexual addiction. So until next time, we hope that this coming week will be a week for you that's filled with many blessings and with great vision.