Wanting What God Wants

It took me a long time to realize that God does want to give me the desires of my heart, but not until my heart changed to reflect His desires. His promises are certain and I can be happy in a future with Him.

I’ve heard people say that praying is hard. Different churches have different ways of praying – sitting down, standing up, kneeling, and lying. No matter which way we pray, we need to know what God wants us to pray about.

The Apostle Paul had a “thorn in his flesh.” He prayed to God multiple times to remove it. After the 3rd time, God answered him God offered Paul a choice of three options. God could remove the thorn, and Paul could get on with life and ministry, leave the thorn, and Paul would forever have the “thorn” and it would slow his ministry down, or he could leave the thorn, but have God’s grace and strength would remain with Paul. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Wow, what choices.

Life presents us with many choices, our choices may not be the ones Paul had. Paul’s choice was choosing between what he wanted and what God wanted, it wasn’t an easy decision.

As God’s children, we have to understand that wanting certain things is not a sin, but wanting something outside of God’s timeframe, outside of God’s will, and God’s Word can cause us to become absorbed in pleasing ourselves at the expense of not pleasing God.

Sometimes we can want something bad enough that we become short-sighted and make bad decisions that are determinantal to our health, or the well-being of others, or even cost us our relationship with God.

For example, you may want a new car, instead of being content with your current one which is working fine. While wanting a new car is not wrong, getting a new car payment into an already overspent budget may not be the best decision at the time. Time is everything when it comes to wanting what God wants for us.

Most of the time we don’t wait for God’s blessing or answer to our prayers and take matters into our own hands. (Proverbs 3:5-6). Instead of following and trusting in God, we lean on our own understanding and acknowledge Him in our ways, we move forward without waiting on God.

My pastor explains it this way. “We were never supposed to eat from the tree of good and evil. God wanted us to rely on Him for everything.”

Lack of faith and patience in God will always lead to unpleasant and unwanted results. When we trust in God’s timing He will handle everything, whatever it is He has for us will come to pass. And what we want won’t interfere with or supersede our relationship with Him.

God is a loving Father, He knows us better than we know ourselves and He sees potential danger in our path. He can steer us clear of anything that will hurt us, even if that means not giving us what we want.

Prioritizing our needs is the first step in making wise decisions, and our need for God’s presence in our lives should be at the top of the list. His grace will provide us with so much more than anything that we could ever want.

God answered Paul’s prayer by not removing the “thorn” but by giving Him grace and the strength to endure it.

I have suffered from migraines since I was 12 years old. I’ve been to countless doctors and taken countless medications to help them. But nothing as worked or the side effects were worse than the migraines. I’ve prayed for years for God to take them away to no avail. But He has given me grace and strength to endure the. There are a few supplements that help take the edge off, so I’m thankful for that.

The one thing that we all need and want in our lives is someone who loves us and wants what is best for us. No one will ever care and love us more than God.