Friday, August 22, 2008

Desires of My Heart...

I know that you are all wondering where I have been and why I have deserted you. I know everyday this week you have come looking and I have not been here. I am so sorry that I left momentarily. Just kidding, I know that your days went along just fine without any posts from me. I really do appreciate you checking in. Please don't just be a lurker, write me a comment and let me know you stopped by.

Well, you may be wondering what I have been doing. Unfortunately, it is nothing glamorous just cleaning and getting organized. But it sure does make you feel good when everything has a place. I have been wanting a large bookcase because I have books everywhere, but I did not want to pay very much for it. You see it is more for use than beauty and no one is really going to see it (I have it hidden away upstairs.) So this week I decided to go look at Goodwill and Salvation Army. I went to Goodwill first, but they did not have anything. I next went to Salvation Army and guess what was waiting for me. There standing tall and alone was the exact bookcase I had been wanting. I thought this was too good to be true, so I went right over to check out the price. The bookcase was only $10. I was more than excited. I took my little treasure home and began the fun task of cleaning out to prepare for the bookcase. So it has been a week filled with dust and stuff I didn't even know I had, but today as I type and look over at my glorious, organized bookcase I am very proud.

I have been praising God this week for my bookcase. You may think that sounds crazy, but I believe that God cares about every detail of our lives. It reminded me of the time I was dependent on hair wax. I went to the only store that carried the brand I liked and to my horror they decided to no longer carry it. That day I prayed right there in the aisle about my hair situation, remember I said I was dependent on it. I turned the corner and guess what my little eyes beheld...one last container of my hair wax and it was on clearance. (You will quickly learn that I love a bargain) Talk about having a revival, this girl had one! Now I am not of the belief that whatever I ask for God will give me. I am smarter than that. But I do believe that God gives us the desires of our heart. Do I believe that I always get what my heart desires, no I don't.

So is there some magical formula we can follow to always assure that we get what we want? I know the short answer to that, but I decided to turn to God's Word and see what He said. In Psalms 37:3-6 it reads:

3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:

6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

I don't know about you, but three words jump out at me...trust, delight, commit. That seems like a pretty good formula to me. "Trust in the LORD and do good." It is hard to trust God sometimes especially when what He is asking of us takes us out of our comfort zone. But God desires for us to trust Him with all our heart even when it is hard. "Delight yourself in the LORD." I looked up the meaning of delight and it is to satisfy. Now read it "satisfy yourself in the LORD." When I think of satisfy, I think of wanting nothing more. Can I say that, can you say that, "we want nothing more than the LORD." Lastly, "Commit your way to the LORD." Once again I turned to Webster's to find the definition of commit and it says "entrust to another's care." Isn't that good! We are to entrust our way to the LORD's care.

When we do these things, I have found that the desires of our heart line up with His ways. It becomes less about getting what we want and more about serving Him. So, how do I explain my bookcase and hair wax. I don't really know, but I do know that I want to trust Him more, satisfy myself with Him and entrust Him with everything. How about you?

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