Reason #590
Tonight is our last night in Dallas, and I have to say that I have had the best sleep since our honeymoon. The bed in our hotel room is seriously like a cloud, so it was pretty difficult to get up at 7:30 this morning when the alarm went off.
I love Sundays. I love going to church, and I always miss getting the opportunity to go when we're out of town. When you're out of town, you usually have no clue where to go on Sunday morning, so it was nice to be able to meet Aaron's sister and her husband for church this morning. Despite the fact that it was negative 1000 degrees in the sanctuary (I think they were over compensating for the 100,000 degree weather outside), we really enjoyed the service. One of my favorite things about the holy spirit is that He is always revealing truth based on what each heart needs to hear. The pastor spoke about worldly repentance versus Godly repentance and tied it all together with redemption, yet as He spoke the Lord began to lay a certain scripture on my heart and give me a new truth that my heart needed to hear.
So you all know my story by now. Truthfully, I kind of forget that it is my story until someone either brings up my past for throws around the "d" word (divorce). Anyway, as the pastor spoke the Lord began to reveal some really comforting things to me about my past that really helped shed some new light on the whole situation. At the end of the sermon, this lady shared her testimony, which was identical to mine. The only difference between her story and mine was that she had been married for 10 years and had 4 kids when we husband made the decision to leave her. But kids or not, it feels the same. And so I listened to her share about how God carried her through it, redeemed it, and blessed her with a wonderful man who has stepped in and been a wonderful husband as well as father. And I watched this sweet lady share this story with joy on her face. Because here she is, on the other side. A woman who has felt intense heartbreak, who has been devastated, who has had to re-route her entire life whether or not she wanted to, who had to learn to really depend on the Lord, and who is a better, stronger, wiser person for it. But I know that woman thought so many times throughout her struggle, "Why did it have to go this way? Why is my life turning out like this?" She never said she asked those questions, but having been there myself, I have a good idea the thought crossed her mind at least once.
I've asked the Lord that so many times before. I've wondered "Why did my life have to take that turn, God? Why did I have to make that decision in the first place? Why did it have to all go down like that?" I've never really been able to put my finger on it before, but today it made sense. Today, it clicked. Although the pastor didn't say a thing about divorce, and He didn't even bring up this particular verse, this was what the Lord spoke to me.
"Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires." - Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord... in the Lord and the Lord alone... and when you delight only in the Lord, then He will give you the desires of your heart. When you delight in the Lord, not in the desire itself, then He will give you it. You see, I grew up knowing this verse and believing it but somewhere along the way I confused delight with behave. If I behave in a Godly manner, in a way I think is pleasing to the Lord, I'll have my heart's desires. If I want something really bad, the Lord will give it to me because I've been so good. And if, for some reason, the Lord doesn't give me what I want when I decide I'd like it, I'll go ahead and do it and ask Him to bless it anyway and He will. Because I was desiring good things, after all. How could I go wrong if I was pursuing something my heart desired that wasn't against God's word? But what happened was I wasn't taking delight in the Lord. I wasn't waiting and being patient because my desires were controlling my behavior. I was taking delight in the thing I had desiring. "God, I have prayed about this my whole life. Here's an opportunity that I've longed for, and it has never come about before, so this must be from you. I'll take it because I'm afraid you may not meet this desire another way and this is my only opportunity." And then when things fell apart, I wondered, "Lord, why did that happen? You're supposed to give me my heart's desires. This was supposed to be a good thing."
And so this morning I felt Him saying, "Brittnye, I love you so much and all I've ever wanted to give you is good things. I've wanted to meet your heart's desires, but you wouldn't let me. You wouldn't wait on me. I needed you to be patient. I needed you to trust me. I needed you to listen to me and let me do that for you, but you didn't. You kept running ahead of me. And so I couldn't meet your heart's desires because you were too busy trying to meet them for yourself. You weren't delighting in me, you were delighting in this desire that you had for years. So I couldn't give you the good things I had planned for you because you were following your own plans and not willing to trust that mine really are perfect. And so that's why, beloved. That is why. Only when you really started to delight, when you finally stopped trying so hard, when you finally quit running ahead of me, when you quit making your own plans and trusted mine, when you looked to me, let go of control and opened your hands, I could actually give you your heart's desires."
I think we all do this in one form or another. God gives us a desire for something, something good, and we take it and run with it. We don't trust Him because somewhere along the way, fear crept in and we were afraid that He might not actually meet it. And so we know we should wait on Him, we know that we need to be patient with Him, but insecurity tells us different and we grab the first opportunity that passes by. We'll go ahead and meet this desire for ourselves. After all, we've waited long enough. Yet it all falls apart one day and we wonder why. We wonder why the Lord would allow such things to happen in our lives. Yet we failed to realize that this wasn't what the Lord wanted for our lives in the first place. This wasn't His doing from the start, it was ours. And so sometimes God has to bring us to that very place of surrender. Sometimes we have to be knocked off our feet to realize that we had it all wrong. If only, if only, if only. But thank goodness we serve a God who is not only much bigger than our mistakes, but a God who is forgiving and redeeming, too. And if we'll just let go, if we'll just give the whole desire to Him and delight in Him rather than that desire itself, we see that God gives it to us. Because it's then that we appreciate it, and it's then that we finally have our life in order so that we are truly ready to receive it.
#590 - Because He meets my heart's desires with His comforting truths.
"Remember your promise to me; it is my only hope. Your promise revives me; it comforts me in all my troubles." - Psalm 119:49-50
I love Sundays. I love going to church, and I always miss getting the opportunity to go when we're out of town. When you're out of town, you usually have no clue where to go on Sunday morning, so it was nice to be able to meet Aaron's sister and her husband for church this morning. Despite the fact that it was negative 1000 degrees in the sanctuary (I think they were over compensating for the 100,000 degree weather outside), we really enjoyed the service. One of my favorite things about the holy spirit is that He is always revealing truth based on what each heart needs to hear. The pastor spoke about worldly repentance versus Godly repentance and tied it all together with redemption, yet as He spoke the Lord began to lay a certain scripture on my heart and give me a new truth that my heart needed to hear.
So you all know my story by now. Truthfully, I kind of forget that it is my story until someone either brings up my past for throws around the "d" word (divorce). Anyway, as the pastor spoke the Lord began to reveal some really comforting things to me about my past that really helped shed some new light on the whole situation. At the end of the sermon, this lady shared her testimony, which was identical to mine. The only difference between her story and mine was that she had been married for 10 years and had 4 kids when we husband made the decision to leave her. But kids or not, it feels the same. And so I listened to her share about how God carried her through it, redeemed it, and blessed her with a wonderful man who has stepped in and been a wonderful husband as well as father. And I watched this sweet lady share this story with joy on her face. Because here she is, on the other side. A woman who has felt intense heartbreak, who has been devastated, who has had to re-route her entire life whether or not she wanted to, who had to learn to really depend on the Lord, and who is a better, stronger, wiser person for it. But I know that woman thought so many times throughout her struggle, "Why did it have to go this way? Why is my life turning out like this?" She never said she asked those questions, but having been there myself, I have a good idea the thought crossed her mind at least once.
I've asked the Lord that so many times before. I've wondered "Why did my life have to take that turn, God? Why did I have to make that decision in the first place? Why did it have to all go down like that?" I've never really been able to put my finger on it before, but today it made sense. Today, it clicked. Although the pastor didn't say a thing about divorce, and He didn't even bring up this particular verse, this was what the Lord spoke to me.
"Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires." - Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord... in the Lord and the Lord alone... and when you delight only in the Lord, then He will give you the desires of your heart. When you delight in the Lord, not in the desire itself, then He will give you it. You see, I grew up knowing this verse and believing it but somewhere along the way I confused delight with behave. If I behave in a Godly manner, in a way I think is pleasing to the Lord, I'll have my heart's desires. If I want something really bad, the Lord will give it to me because I've been so good. And if, for some reason, the Lord doesn't give me what I want when I decide I'd like it, I'll go ahead and do it and ask Him to bless it anyway and He will. Because I was desiring good things, after all. How could I go wrong if I was pursuing something my heart desired that wasn't against God's word? But what happened was I wasn't taking delight in the Lord. I wasn't waiting and being patient because my desires were controlling my behavior. I was taking delight in the thing I had desiring. "God, I have prayed about this my whole life. Here's an opportunity that I've longed for, and it has never come about before, so this must be from you. I'll take it because I'm afraid you may not meet this desire another way and this is my only opportunity." And then when things fell apart, I wondered, "Lord, why did that happen? You're supposed to give me my heart's desires. This was supposed to be a good thing."
And so this morning I felt Him saying, "Brittnye, I love you so much and all I've ever wanted to give you is good things. I've wanted to meet your heart's desires, but you wouldn't let me. You wouldn't wait on me. I needed you to be patient. I needed you to trust me. I needed you to listen to me and let me do that for you, but you didn't. You kept running ahead of me. And so I couldn't meet your heart's desires because you were too busy trying to meet them for yourself. You weren't delighting in me, you were delighting in this desire that you had for years. So I couldn't give you the good things I had planned for you because you were following your own plans and not willing to trust that mine really are perfect. And so that's why, beloved. That is why. Only when you really started to delight, when you finally stopped trying so hard, when you finally quit running ahead of me, when you quit making your own plans and trusted mine, when you looked to me, let go of control and opened your hands, I could actually give you your heart's desires."
I think we all do this in one form or another. God gives us a desire for something, something good, and we take it and run with it. We don't trust Him because somewhere along the way, fear crept in and we were afraid that He might not actually meet it. And so we know we should wait on Him, we know that we need to be patient with Him, but insecurity tells us different and we grab the first opportunity that passes by. We'll go ahead and meet this desire for ourselves. After all, we've waited long enough. Yet it all falls apart one day and we wonder why. We wonder why the Lord would allow such things to happen in our lives. Yet we failed to realize that this wasn't what the Lord wanted for our lives in the first place. This wasn't His doing from the start, it was ours. And so sometimes God has to bring us to that very place of surrender. Sometimes we have to be knocked off our feet to realize that we had it all wrong. If only, if only, if only. But thank goodness we serve a God who is not only much bigger than our mistakes, but a God who is forgiving and redeeming, too. And if we'll just let go, if we'll just give the whole desire to Him and delight in Him rather than that desire itself, we see that God gives it to us. Because it's then that we appreciate it, and it's then that we finally have our life in order so that we are truly ready to receive it.
#590 - Because He meets my heart's desires with His comforting truths.
"Remember your promise to me; it is my only hope. Your promise revives me; it comforts me in all my troubles." - Psalm 119:49-50
Comments
Post a Comment