October 16, 2013
What You Ask For
For most of her life
my octogenarian friend has been a writer, however it wasn’t until this past
year that her first book was published. Although she fulfilled every writer’s
dream of becoming a published author, her writing has now taken a back seat to
the marketing, selling and promoting of her book. Just listening to her
schedule of networking, book signings and publicity endeavors makes me tired.
Betty laughed, “I don’t know if it’s
worth it at my age to even think about writing another book.” I was
reminded of the old adage that says, ‘be careful for what you ask for, because
you just might get it’. God gives us the desires of our heart, but it is within in His
will, His timing…and when we are fully equipped to go beyond our desires.
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4 comments:
Gail;
-----In a sense, I think God gives everyone the desires of their hearts. I think man’s perception of not being granted our desires is more that we do not always know what are the real desires of our hearts than it is that we do not receive what we desire. For we are false. But God, being true, knows our hearts fully and our desires truly.
-----The unkempt heart of man most often becomes a contorted mess of self defeat and destruction. In the depths of its subconscious, incredibly, are many snares and stumbling blocks and ambitions for self destruction. If effort is able to plough some trails of consistency through this, they more often lead only to worse destruction even though they might wind through extraordinary wealth and pleasure. “The righteous shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, ‘See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and sought refuge in his wealth!’” (Ps 52:6-7) That wealth may have bought every desire of the man’s heart, but it did not buy eternal bliss.
-----So also the man who carefully keeps wealth and pleasures in their proper place, but wants only to live forever will exist forever. His existence won’t be the kind I want. For no soul to which God gave life will cease to exist. Everyone will be resurrected again unto an eternal existence. It is not enough to want eternity.
-----The Bible makes much of the desire for righteousness. Not just a desire to be seen or known as righteous, or just to be righteous, but the desire for all of what good, right, and true are and what they do and from Whom they come and for whom their doing benefits. For righteousness is a culture of God’s kind, so it has no parts for snipping off like a flower to wear upon the lapel. If the desire is not for the entire culture of it, then once again, what will be gotten of the desire will not be pleasant.
-----Nobody who desires righteousness as what pleases God knows the entire culture of it. We are limited by these bodies of death. So no temporal heart is devoid of any errant desires. But within that culture of right are the desires for God’s discipline and guidance, like Jesus showed us to pray, “Thy will be done.” Then our various desires are fulfilled according to His picking, for we grant Him that with our top desires: the coming of His kingdom and the doing of His will.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Yes, we need to learn to live patiently, right now I am going through a period of tribulation, but things are getting better, thanks to God's wisdom and love, I like your entry.
Lots of Blessings,
Corina
Corina,
Welcome to the conversation. You are not alone in your tribulation...God is right by your side.
God Bless,
Gail
Corina;
-----Tribulations come by every cause imaginable. Sometimes God is the cause because we need to be plucked from bad soil and planted in good. Other times, even though we are planted in the best soil and growing beautifully for the Lord, tribulation comes by plain old bad people doing bad things which just happened to knock off some of our bark. I honestly believe that eventually the “from where’s” and “why’s” of a tribulation event will turn up amongst the other facts and circumstances of our continuing paths. And the Holy Spirit will teach from those something that will be another “Aha!” moment in the making of your godly life.
-----But what I feel to be very important during a tribulation time is the genuine joy of life. I mean that to say, “Joy in the Lord, and joy in His life, etc.” But I don’t say it that way because it is more important to know, especially during tribulation, that all life is His life. He extracts glory from every moment and every deed done. Sometimes it is the glory of defeating the moment. Sometimes it is the glory of giving the moment victory. Other times it is the simple bundling of it with a myriad others for defeat or victory, whatever He deems best. So you can know in the midst of tribulation that you are yet living in His life because you are forgiven and have been adopted, for you always desire to be made right. How comforting and warming it is to sit back a moment in all your toils and know the goodness of God will be made of what you live in spite of its flaws and fallacies, simply because you want what He calls right.
-----Then that joy is so important. It frees the mind somewhat from the constraining post to which pain would have it hitched. But by the grace of God you are the master of what pain or joy you need to perceive. A few years ago a little deer smeared me and my motorcycle. The pavement wore a hole completely through the skin on the ball of my big toe. This hole, about the size of a quarter, was filled with tar and dirt. I assured my wife that her scrubbing it with a hand brush would feel good. So, as she scrubbed, it did feel good. Really, really good! So she felt ok to scrub harder. Since I couldn’t have it getting infected I decided all its pain would be joy. And it was. I have monumentalized that moment. And for my perception of joy, I have hardly a scar, because I got nary an infection.
-----It is hard to say that the pain of tribulation can be joy. But knowing that every event in the life of God’s adopted child is a stitch in the tapestry of His glory qualifies every perception of any moment to be joy only, if that need be. And joy makes us strong because it is part of what Paul said makes His kingdom, along with righteousness and peace rather than food and drink. (Rom 14:17) So you can know that the way you perceive your conditions is so much more important than the physical way your conditions are. And in this joy offered by the Lord is your path to victory.
Love you,
Steve
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