Psalm 37:4,"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart," is a verse that I have quoted often in my life. Usually I do so trying to twist God's arm to give me the my desires that are not necessarily his. Many times those desires did not line up with what God was trying to teach me at the time. Some were very legitimate desires, desires of service, but God was teaching me patience and more importantly, teaching me other valuable and vital character lessons that were much more important than the desires I was expressing.
I have often been frustrated in my Christian life because I felt that verses like Psalm 37:4 were not really true in the practical sense of the word. "This is a fine verse for those who get what they want but what about the rest of us?" I would say to myself and the Lord. But I have come to understand in experience of living and trusting God that the Lord does indeed have His own timetable.
The most valuable lessons that I have been learning in my Christian walk is that God is constantly teaching me character lessons way before He shows me what He actually wants me to do for Him. Many times, I found myself trying to twist my wife's arm to convince her of what I thought was God's will. How strange for a Christian man, a pastor even, to go against the teaching of 1 Peter 3:1-6 and still expect God to honour his desires? God wanted me to learn to walk in harmony with my 'helper that is fit for me' before I could ever hope to have my desires fulfilled.
Christian husbands need to learn to listen to their wives. We are so busy most of the time trying to tell our wives that they need to submit to us, while we forget that there is a mutual submission that the Apostle Paul talks about that is just as valid as the submission that the wife is to give to the husband. Wives do have a sixth sense about things, they do have a sense of spirituality and intuition that we men lack in a big way. I needed to learn that lesson.
God, through His Spirit, has put into my spiritual DNA, the desire to serve Him. That is first and foremost. Our spiritual desires to please God and serve God come from God. Therefore, we must wait for God to bring all the strands together. We should not force situations or persons to do what we want. We must be humble enough to see God's timing in each and every circumstance. There is a reason for the 'no' answer you maybe receiving from God. We need to be attentive to what the Lord wants to teach us at that moment because it will prepare us for what lies ahead.
To serve God is the greatest privilege that you and I will ever have! It is my prayer that wherever you are in your spiritual walk that you let God be God and learn the lessons he has for you at this particular moment in time.
For God's Glory,
Bill
