Curiosity is a big part of my life and I see it as essential to being a good husband, man and disciple of Christ. It is not the main thing that makes me good at my job but it is essential to my work. I long to open my Bible because I want to see what God will say to me. I study my wife because I love her and think she is fascinating.
American culture often associates curiosity and lust as being synonymous but one is pure and childlike and the other is possessive and controlling.
Bondage kills our curiosity. We dread that what was will be again. We flinch at the future but grace produces fertile ground for our healthy desire to explore and know what is knowable.
"Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers." - James 1:13-16 ESV
God didn't make beauty to tempt us but when we move from appreciation to a desire to have and control we experience death. God must become our satisfaction again. If He has never been our satisfaction He must have that place or we will all slip down that slippery slope over and over.
"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." - Ephesians 4:30-32 ESV
If we have God we can live a life of constant exploration. We can be fascinated even by the familiar because the need of our soul has been satisfied by God's love, mercy and acceptance.
"Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit." - Psalm 51:11-12 ESV
David lived at a time before the cross. Men weren't sealed with God's spirit at the point of salvation. He saw Saul, his King, lose his joy and security and enter into lustful pursuits and feared what might happen to him in his own life if he wandered too far away.
We live after the cross. If we have believed we are sealed forever but we sometimes need the joy restored. God will give us our innocence back if we seek His face and then we can rediscover the world like little children.
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