I
recently read a quote that said, "life is good; people make it
difficult." This couldn't be further from the truth! The Bible says
"there's a way that SEEMS right to a man, but the Lord weighs the
hearts." And again, "There's a way that seems right to a man, but the
end thereof is destruction."
Our goal is to get what we want. What is God's goal and will for us?
His goal is to get what we want to us and more!
He wants life to be good for us and to get blessing into our lives.
In Deuteronomy, God lays the foundation that we should love Him, obey
Him and treat others right, and in doing so, things will go well for us
-- we will have long life, be prosperous, be happy, etc. He tells us to
teach these things to our children and to keep them on our minds and in
our daily conversations so that future generations will also know Him
and be blessed abundantly.
His will for us really is good (Jeremiah 11:13).
He wants us blessed and has given us principles that will lead to more of them (blessings) than we can contain (Deuteronomy 6)!
He
also wants to be close to us, to have our hearts and attention. He will
give the desires of their hearts to those who delight themselves in
Him! (Psalm 37:4).
So if we both we and God want what is good for our lives, what is the problem? Why doesn't life always end up this way?
I think it has do do with Lordship.
Is He truly Lord of our lives and of our hearts? Or are we the Lord (influencer, controller, master, chief) of our lives alone?
Do we submit our every decision to His influence above ALL else?
Are
we chasing after what we want at whatever costs (whatever will make us
feel good for the moment/for a while)? Or are we chasing after Him with
all that's in us --leading to lasting & long term benefits? After
all, it does say "Seek Him (the kingdom of God & His righteousness) first
and everything else will be added to you." Does that mean to seek when
convenient, when in trouble, or always, at all times, constantly? We
don't need to chase the dreams/desires, just the one that brings
fulfillment!
Furthermore,
are we loving Him with all that's in us, and therefore, trusting Him
with our lives? Or are we at the reigns, not allowing His input and will
to have precedence over us? Could this pursuing what we want in lieu of
giving God the reigns be causing us to experience cycles of what we don't
want instead of the desired outcome?
When
we don't allow God to take full control (which we all do...for we've
all fallen short...Jesus came to save us all!) then our actions lead to
results we did not want or intend. We get temporary satisfaction and
long term negative effects when we act outside of His will.
When
we decide to be our own God and do things our own way, disregarding
God's total input, we get ourselves into a cycle of trouble. I want this
(fill in the blank), so I'm going to do this (fill in the blank), but
then this (the opposite of what I wanted) happens.
Then,
in order to ease our pain, stress, tension or depression from the first
result of our independent actions, we take matters into our own hands
again -- we decide we are going to do another thing our own way to get ourselves out of the first cycle, and the
cycle continues. We keep doing these things that lead to temporary
satisfaction but long term suffering, instead of temporarily doing what
we don't feel like doing (submitting that thing to God) that will
ultimately lead to long term success and happiness.
There
are may examples of this, but let's use romantic relationships. We may
be lonely and want a man/woman to love us, so we become intimate with
him/her, even though God's will is to wait for marriage (for our own
good). We go for what our body wants now, not thinking about the future
realistically. We decide to take matters into our own hands instead of
waiting on God. Then, we either go through heart break, abuse, realize
he/she isn't the one realize we've wasted our time, energy and emotions;
or we have children when we're not ready, when the other person was not
ready, or other things we did not want. This happens with many
different scenarios, not just relationships.
God's Word works! We can trust Him at the reigns. One
of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the Lord with
all of your heart and don't lean to your own understanding; in all your
ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." For some reason
this scripture became my favorite. I just
gravitated towards it and it really stood out to me and spoke to me. Now
I've come to realize that God put it on my heart because I would need to
hold onto it in life. Much more than mere words on a page, I would need to remember this principle and apply it to my circumstances to experience His power to work in my life -- with Him taking the reigns. And it worked --every time! Of course I discovered how
special it was after experiencing many trials, and will continue to need to apply it,
but as I've gone through things and have chosen to TRUST in God with ALL
of my heart and not lean (focus on, act on, stay at) to my own understanding, and acknowledge Him
in all my ways, He has truly directed my path to many, many
blessings...His will and mine!
Life is good; we make it difficult by not giving Him the reigns.
