Meditating on psalm 131 today. I had a question in my heart and have been discerning the answer over the past couple days. I asked, “does God delight more in giving us the deepest, genuine desire of our heart or when we willingly sacrifice it for Him?”
I think God wanted me to know that of course He delights in giving us the desires of our hearts, but why would we sacrifice this if not for even greater joy? Why would we sacrifice if we feel we are striving against God? Pushing against a current? Then we are no longer offering something out of love, but with resentment. God never wants us to resent him or see Him as a Tyrant, where we give something up for some other good or for what we think is His good or will, when it’s really not but only what we think he wants and he does not want us to be miserable! We should want to align our will and desires with His, but not surrender what we do not actually want to surrender. He’s on our side. He delights in both. He delights in our highest capacity for joy. He wants us to rest in his peace and find satisfaction in him. Psalm 131 reminds me of that. ❤️
(Also, when this sacrifice is out of our control and we didn’t ask for it, but we accept it willingly, I think God is also pleased.)
ETA:
After some reflection and prayer, I realized that I was asking the wrong questions (or in the wrong way). When I asked whether God delights more in giving us the deepest, genuine desires of our heart or when we willingly sacrifice it for him... I was approaching it like Salty McSaltsalt over here. I wasn't looking at it from an eternal perspective. God having better plans for us doesn't necessarily mean in this life. It doesn't mean there's this one person that God has in store for us that we wait for. This life could very well be full of suffering and some people never find that person (or have children), but it's about WHO WE BECOME in this life and the state of our hearts. Maybe that happens with a partner, maybe that happens in our giving and sacrificing and serving others. I used to think there was a person out there for me. Like a little girl that still wanted to believe in Santa Claus, I still wanted to believe in a "soulmate" for a long time, but I do know that soul mates are made, not found. In the meantime, God wants me to grow and heal and he's testing my heart in many ways that I wouldn't have learned from or grown through in the past when I was flailing in the wind blindly without the trust of Christ. So, it's not about whether God wants to give you what you want or whether he'd rather see you surrender it. That's not the point. I still think Psalm 131 applies, though, as we should find contentment in all situations and trust in the Lord and wean ourselves from the desire of worldly things. Not so much that we become coldly unattached, though. There is so much beauty in God's created things. :-)
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