Many times thoughts like these come from either my experiences or the experiences of those around me. I usually already have a perspective on the subject and a worldview through which I perceive my experiences. But then God allows something to happen that challenges my understanding of who He is. At this point I have to make a decision. Either my intellectual knowledge is wrong or my understanding of the experience is wrong. I know, I'm probably being confusing so let me see if I can explain through an example. In fact the very example which drove me to question and search for something deeper in the first place.
Most reading this have probably heard the verse Psalm 37:4 Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. There are 2 ways of looking at this verse. One way is if you delight in the Lord he will give you whatever desires are in your heart. The other way is if you delight in the Lord the desires your heart has will be from the Lord. I guess I always had a combination of the thoughts for my interpretation of the verse. I believed that if you are truly delighting in the Lord He will fill your heart with His desires. As you come to know Him more, you will become more like Him. But also in the back of my mind I told myself that if the desires I have are from God that He would fulfill those desires.
Now that you have a little back ground into my pattern of thinking, this is the situation I found my self in. Without a doubt, I know that God had lead me in a direction. I knew that the desires I had were from Him without question. He had confirmed that many times. But then I also came to a point where I also knew that desires would not be fulfilled. This was confusing to say the least, because why would God give me desires that He never had the intention of filling. So still in my Ps 34:7 mindset I told myself that if I give focused on God and continue to delight in Him that these desires would change. The opposite happened. I focused on God, continued to follow Him, and serve Him in any way I could and the desires grew. I didn't know what to do or where to turn. I actually pulled away from God some, hoping that the desires would diminish, and it did, but then I would be telling myself the whole time that it wasn't right. No desire would ever come between my relationship with God.
So what now? What could I do? I was at a proverbial stalemate. The desire finally left, but I really wasn't sure why or how. So it was at this point I wrote the first part of the note. I really didn't have a direction I was leading, and I didn't know the answer. Your comments helped because it showed me that I'm not the only one with seemingly superficial desires at times. It also helped me to see that sometimes we decided what the fulfillment of a desire is without ever contemplating what the true desire is in the first place. I might desire money, but usually that is the fulfillment of a desire for the feeling of security. A sense of knowing that everything will be alright and will workout.
And then it hit me. Maybe there is another deeper way of looking at Ps 37:4 that I had never truly considered before. Maybe it's that as we delight ourselves in the Lord He becomes the fulfillment of the desires of our hearts. Maybe Jesus fulfills every single one of our deepest desires. Maybe if we trace each of our desires back to the root, and what it really is we want, we will find the feeling, that emotion, or knowledge, fulfilled though God.
Even though I was delighting in God I was still looking for a material fulfillment of that desire. I wasn't looking at God as the fulfillment. As you find desires that you have, whether they be serving Him in Africa, having enough money for the next mortgage payment, the ability to withstand temptation in the mist of fire, a thirst for knowledge or wanting to see you children grow up Godly. Think about that desire and what it really is you desire. Accomplishing your purpose on earth, a feeling of security, strength in weakness, more wisdom, or knowledge that God is in control and see if through Him the root of that desire is not fulfilled. And then through the peace of Christ live a life of victory fulfilled in Him. My material desire wasn't fulfilled but the deeper desire was filled long ago, I just didn't know it.
So the question still remains. Why would God allow us, or even lead us toward a material desire if He has no intention of giving it to us? I don't really know. I probably wouldn't be writing this note now if things had been different. But I do know that my god wasn't big enough. I had put Him in a box that said if He leads through desires, He must fulfill that material desire. When in reality He will do what ever needs to be done to gain a deeper relationship with His children. Boundaries can be found at which we can know God, and know His character but we need to be sure those are the boundaries He has set and not us. I would write more, but this note is long enough as it is.
(There were some good comments on facebook. Check it out if you have a page.)
