Rambling About the Desires of our Hearts

“Trust in Yahweh, and do good. Dwell in the land, and enjoy safe pasture. Also delight yourself in Yahweh, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to Yahweh. Trust also in him, and he will do this: he will make your righteousness go forth as the light, and your justice as the noon day sun. Rest in Yahweh, and wait patiently for him. Don’t fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who makes wicked plots happen.” (Psalm 37:3-7, WEB)



How do you explain it when God doesn't grant the desires of someone's heart, but instead rips those desires out of their hands? How do you explain it when God strips you of everything you wanted in life? All too often these questions are ignored or twisted by well meaning Christians. The answer usually thrown out there is that "you have to have faith!" Or something to the effect of, "if you just believed more!"



The people who give these answers really just don't get it. They follow a line of thought that is extremely popular in Christian circles today which says that God wants to bless you, give you everything you want out of life, and make all your dreams come true as though God was a fairy godmother come to send them to the ball to marry a prince. It makes me angry just thinking about it.



God's one goal for us in life is to know Him. It's for us to respond to Him and come into union with Himself. His perception of our existence goes far beyond our mortal lives. Everything He does or permits to happen to us is with this in mind.He knows we are spiritually blind or autistic and His goal is to bring us out of it. He uses anything at His disposal to do it. If wealth in our lives will accomplish His purpose, then He will do it. If extreme poverty will accomplish His goal, then He will do that too.



Most often what accomplishes His goal for us is to carefully strip away our illusions. As human beings who are spiritually autistic, we tend to only put our trust in those things which we can see. This is extremely short sighted and counter productive. We only feel secure when we can see walls of protection around us. We only feel like we will have enough when we can see the source of our provision. We irrationally assume that it will always be there, and the more rational acknowledgement that it is impermanent throws us into worry, confusion, and chaos. He then takes great pains to carefully strip away these illusions of security and control that we build around ourselves like flimsy, shoddily constructed shelters on a beach.



As long as the weather is warm, the sun is out, and life seems good, those shelters give us a false sense of security. If a light rain comes, or maybe unwelcome visitors at night, they keep us reasonably dry and protected. We feel safe and warm by the light of a cooking fire nearby. But what happens when a hurricane comes? Do those shelters protect us? No. They are stripped away. The fire is blown out. We are left battered, injured, cold, and naked before the force of the storm.



Sometimes God uses hurricanes in our lives to do just this because it's the only thing that will get our attention. The desires of our hearts which we seek are really only these illusions and fantasies that we build around ourselves. God has to strip them away if we're going to progress in His goal for us, to know Him as He is.



I my life I've had several goal, dreams, and desires. So has my wife. We still do. God has sent hurricane after hurricane to strip them from us. What's funny is that I've stopped worrying about it. I've come to realize that the thing I really want most out of life is really the same thing that He wants and it's the only thing worth attaining, to know Him as He is, and to become one with Him. Everything else in life, pleasant or unpleasant, needs to line up with this goal or it's not worth having and is only a distraction from it.



God does enjoy giving good gifts to His children. There is no question about that. What good father wouldn't? But the children don't always understand what a good gift really is, and what a harmful one is. The children don't always understand why chores need to be done. The children don't understand why they need to go to school. In particular, an autistic child may not understand why their parent is doing the things they do with him or her, when everything that parent does is to help them get treatment. Sometimes treatment is uncomfortable and it hurts. For a kid with autism who doesn't understand, it may seem like the end of the world.



If we are truly delighting ourselves in Yahweh, then He is the only desire of our hearts, and He is happy to give us more of Himself.