We live in a world absolutely inundated by wants, needs, and just all around desires. Everything shouts for our attention almost constantly and the result of this is an intense pursuit of more. Chasing our goals and our wants by itself is not such a bad thing. It’s a very good thing actually. But tipped into a sense of dissatisfaction, as it all too often is, and we find ourselves absolutely consumed by it.
But we have to keep our desires in check. Everything depends on it. Many a believer has been led into all manner of stumbling because their good desires ran unchecked until they were temptations. It’s such a slippery slope that sometimes we’re half way down before we even know we started. So what’s an indication that our desire as soured into something dangerous? It’s placement next to God in our lives.
We cannot afford to let anything matter more to us than God and his will for us.
This is no small feat. I’m not ignorant to the magnitude of how that looks practically. There are things I want in life so badly it almost feels unbearable some days, but I can’t let those desires become more important than God in my life. He has to matter more because he is the only thing truly worth having. He’s the only thing that can’t be taken away.
Everything else in your life can be lost and taken away from you. You can lose your spouse, your children, your home, your job, your health. And if any of those things ranked higher in importance than God, the loss of them will completely destroy you. You have to have your life built on something more lasting than anything that can be taken away from you. And the only thing that can’t be taken away from you is God and his unending love for you.
So we have to ask God to help us want him more than the things we feel we want. We have to take those most dearly held desires and surrender them over to him. That doesn’t mean that we don’t want those things anymore. In fact, it likely won’t get any easier trying. It means doing the hard work to come to God again and again, asking him to help us want him more.
And trust me, I know what it is I’m telling you to do. I understand what a huge ask that is. I know that there were desires and wants that came to mind when you started reading this that brought that old tightness to your chest. I know there have been tearful nights or explosive moments of unbridled frustration. I know there have been times when you have it out with God and lay it all out, asking him “why” one more time in the hopes that this time the answer will be electric and clear. I’ve been there. I am there. It’s hard.
But believe me, your worst day following God will always be better for you than your best day following yourself. You may have desires that might not ever get fulfilled or things you may lose forever, and God has to hold a higher place in your life than those things.
And God is not ignorant to your longing. He is not so busy that the things you long for has slipped his mind. God is deeply aware of what you’re longing for and he wants good things for you. The case might just be that God is preparing even better things than what you think is the best you can achieve. And most often those things take more time to come to fruition. God is working for our good, on his terms in his time. Our desires will have an answer.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 