Never be convinced of your own desires.

There are two things I have to say to preface this post:

1.       I have decided that my desires are not trustworthy.

2.       I use the word “WANT” a lot in this post. Please bear with me on this blog as I attempt, no doubt rather unsuccessfully, to come up with better ways to use the English language.

So, I came across this picture a few weeks ago of boat-loads of newlyweds.

It got me thinking: What would have happened if I had gotten everything I wanted in the last four years?

I am sure at some time in the last four years one of my wants would have been to be a “newlywed.” Now? Not so much.

Of course that question is preposterous. To get everything on the list wouldn’t have been possible. If I had gotten a few of the first things I had wanted, that would have changed my life, thus not leading me down the same roads I have travelled and not leading me to all of the other wants that made it on my list.

Does that make sense?

As in, if I could look back on the last four years and make a list of the wants I have had, if one, two and three came true then six, seven and eight wouldn’t have had a chance to present itself because I wouldn’t have been in those times and places that birthed those wants. I hope that’s understandable.

Back to the question, though. What if I had gotten everything I wanted over the last four years?

In showing a discredit to my judgment, I honestly have to say that I would be miserable.

Those things that I then wanted are now to me either repulsive or at best just very BLAH.

The irony about the whole thing is that at the time when I wasn’t getting what I wanted, I was thinking that I was miserable! All the tears, all the midnight phone calls to best friends, all the wonderings, all the questioning of “Why God are you not doing this for me?” What a waste of my time. If I had gotten what I desired, putting an end to the pain of that “lack,” I would have ended up in even worse shape.

Hindsight can make a person thankful for grace.

There is no doubt that the way things have worked out, and even to a certain extent all of the pained misery and what it caused to grow in me, was what God wanted. Those unfulfilled desires, and how Jesus chose to respond to me in them, are a large part of what constitutes who I am right now and why the Bette that sits here typing this is not the one she was four years ago.

Praise the Lord.

On numerous occasions have I stepped out of a season of my life, looked back on that perceived want I didn’t get and yelled at the top of my lungs, “Thank you GOD for not giving me that!!”

Oh the untold wisdom of my God.

I think he must look down at me and all of my sincere ignorance and just smirk. Because it is sincere! Whenever I am in those miserable stages I find myself so convinced that there is nothing else in the world that would be good for me. “How will I go on without this!? What is a girl to do if I don’t get this!? I will explode, I am sure.”

There is also this tendency to somehow think that God is holding out on me. Because I am not getting what I am convinced is best for me, it causes me to have a lack of trust. After all, isn’t God out for the good of those who called according to his purposes? There really is no other obvious answer than God is mean.

Ha.

But that’s not true.

God is good. All the time.  

More so than I know.

In every situation thus far, not getting what I wanted has proved to be nothing but grace and keeping me from a medial existence.

In my life lived apart from those things, I have discovered time and time again that I don’t actually want that anyway! I was wrong all along! God’s plan tends to reveal other REAL desires that I didn’t know I had and would never have known if I had been given a “Yes” to those prayers rather than the received “No.” Most of that previous stuff was fluff. It would have kept me at a level of living lower than where I am now. It would have been settling.

What a beautiful thing to find new desires, too! The constant discovery leads me down roads towards adventures and experiences I never would have otherwise had. Not getting what I wanted has given me opportunities that have given me some of my best stories.

Think about it: If I had not "waited"—if I had just taken matters into my own hands and GOT THINGS DONE--- I may have gotten what I wanted, but I would have stopped short of where God wanted me.

See, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure…” (Jeremiah 17:9) My desires are terribly flighty. Sometimes I feel they leave as quickly as they come. Here today, gone tomorrow. My wants cannot be trusted.

I think about how much of my life I waste while focusing on the agony of not getting “that which I most desire.” What could I have been praying for instead?

Long story short: God not giving us what we want is His good grace towards us.

I am so glad God knows better than to give me all I ask for.

And, if you don’t take anything else away from this, remember this phrase:

Never be convinced of your own desires.