God & Desire

"Hast thou not seen how thy desires have been/Granted in what he ordainth."


I'm still thinking about desires and wrestling with the relationship between my desires and God's will. This morning I was thinking about how I would never want to want something so badly that I gave God the job of official-approver-of-what-I-want. "Here Father, this is what I want. Did I hear you say, yes?"


When it comes to desires, I think God is involved in the process from the very beginning. I've noticed that through different life experiences (some not so pleasant I might add!) God has been revealing to me what my heart's desires are.


But now that I can clearly articulate what I want, I realize that He wants my desires. The things I long for I turn over to Him. Those dreams and desires are safe with Him. He knows better than me how to get to place where I want to go. While I have an inkling of how I can get what I want, I really don't know the best way to get there. How lucky I am to have a God who is better at reading maps than me!

Also, my desires are safe with Him because He knows my desires better than me. I read a story recently about Augustine's mother. She prayed desperately for him to stay near her so she could influence him for good, but he went to another country. In that country, he found God. God did not answer her prayer that Augustine would stay near her so He could answer her ultimate prayer that her son would follow God. God answers my ultimate desires.

My specific desire right now is to find a job where I can have enough free time to write, but God knows my ultimate desires. If He has to forgo a specific desire to reach the ultimate desires of my life for now--then I'm blessed--even though I might not see the blessing in a detour.

But what I see more and more is that beyond my earthly dreams God has planted a deeper desire. He has planted a desire for Him. He has put eternity in my heart (Ecc. 3:11). Or as Augustine once prayed, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

**I wrote most of this post this morning and decided to sit on it some more to think about it. I was just crawling in bed and to read before I went to sleep I got out the Desire of Ages and read the following in the preface:

"Most of use, whatever our race or station in life, long for something better than we now possess. God Himself has planted this desire in our nature, that we may not be satisfied with present attainments whether bad, or good, or better. God desires that we shall seek the best, and find it. Often these longings are perverted. We may try to satisfy our desires with pleasures, money, creature comforts, and power. But these things eventually prove empty and unsatisfying, leaving our lives empty. God designs that our hearts' desires should lead to the One who alone is able to satisfy them. He wants us to find Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Eternal God. "For in Him (Christ) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell."

I thought how appropriate the paragraph was for my musings today. I suppose it's even more appropriate that the book is titled The Desire of Ages.

God of desires and my Desire--bless this life written here.