At times in my life, I've wondered what it is that God could possibly be doing. After all, isn't he supposed to have my best interests at heart? Shouldn't he be paying attention to the disappointments that I face? Aren't the cries of my soul supposed to be of the utmost importance to him, as my creator and king?
And then I get frustrated.
Why should I give control of my life to a being who clearly has no idea how to manage? After all... I'm not wealthy. I don't have an exorbitant amount of money with which to make all of my dreams come true. My body doesn't look the way I'd like it to, and my hair doesn't flow in silky waves like the women on the Herbal Essence commercials. God obviously loves them more than he loves me.
Then there are my relationships. I don't have powerful and well-known friends. I'm not surrounded by people attending extravagant parties, to which I'm invited. There are no red carpet events penciled into my planner like celebrities I see on television. God obviously loves them more than he loves me.
And I don't have some kind of dream job. My childhood fantasies of singing in front of millions of screaming fans never came true. I don't wore for a Fortune 500 company, and my office doesn't offer me a view of the city skyline from the luxury of my desk, like some executive. God obviously loves them more than he loves me.
I'm not particularly talented. There's nothing about me that would inherently make people stop in their tracks in awe of my raw, unadulterated being. I've never won anything extraordinary.
But some people are. Some people have. Some people will.
God obviously loves them more than he loves me.
It sounds ridiculous when you see it in black and white, really. If you read that paragraph on its own, you'd accuse me of sacrilege. And rightfully so. But aren't we guilty, in the back of our minds, of thinking this way? Allowing ourselves to blame God for our lives being less than what we expect them to be?
And THAT is our problem. We live with an expectation that's ingrained deep within our hearts fro the time we're little boys and little girls... and these expectations are not divine. They come from the selfish desires of a world that tells us that we will never accomplish enough. That we will never have enough. That we will never be enough.
And so it aches. From the core of our very beings, it aches. The need to compete. To measure up. We live in this constant and unending rat-race that spurns us toward a goal that is never meant to be accomplished. And when we inevitably fail, we blame the one to whom we claimed surrender.
I've been struck by this harsh reality recently. It's rumbled around like a storm in my heart, and as my faithful readers (haha), I am bound to speak truth to your hearts.
The reason for our unhappiness... our lack of fulfillment... is not because He is unfaithful. It is not because he has failed in anything that He's promised us, though we often believe that way.
It's because we've bought into this warped frame of thinking; a thinking that binds God's faithfulness in fulfilling His promises to the world's ideas of success. Of beauty. Of perfection.
Pslam 37:4 urges us: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."
Notice that this requires action. It does not allow for complacency.
He doesn't tell us that God will give us the desires of our heart with no effort on our part. And what is that effort? Delighting oneself in the Lord.
13-year-old Amanda McAdams interpreted this verse much differently than the woman who writes to you today. My adolescent self saw a God who would grant my wishes, should I simply enjoy the fact that He existed. Anything I wanted! If I lived my life in a way that was good and I delighted in His presence, he would grant me the things that I wanted. At the time, I believe that probably consisted of a desire for a pink razor cell phone and the attention of a particular shaggy-haired boy who shall remain unnamed.
But friend, the beauty of this verse is that it is meant to be transformative. We try to give so much attention to the second half that we lose the meaning of the first. To delight oneself in the Lord means that the very core of who you are... your heart... your mind... yes, even your DESIRES... are captivated by Him. In doing so, HIS desires become YOUR desires. In the midst of the delight, the child of the king will find his/her desires changing. Because things like success, beauty, and relationships look very different in the eyes of a king. In fact, they have little in common with the simple desires of the peasants who know nothing of the glory of a kingdom.
So in the midst of your disappointment with God.. when He has seemingly failed you once again... when, in your eyes, your prayers have yet again gone unanswered...
When you wonder why...
Remember that the Lord's delights are so vastly different from the delights that we find on earth. For this earth is but a shadow of things to come.
And my goodness... if the things we love the most on this earth are a shadow of the glory of heaven... well then; we're in for a wild ride.
Blessings on you and yours
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