Ever prayed something like this:
“Lord every now and then the anger wells up in me so that I cannot control it and I battle to release it and give it over to You. I feel so angry Lord. I battle to accept the situation as it is, I so desperately want change. I realise that I feel like this when I don’t get what I want, or what I was hoping for. This situation as it is, is not what I would like to happen, and my wants and needs are not being considered.”
I was being honest with God about my disappointment, my dissatisfaction, even trying to understand my own anger.
I realised that I was being very self-focused. It sounded like that old “Me-me-me”-song of self-focus which focused on what “I don’t have” or “what I want.” The result was that it was leading to a certain type of thinking that was breeding anger in me:
- I don’t have…therefore I am deprived.
- You are not doing … for me, therefore I am not satisfied or happy.
- I want this… therefore I am not having my needs met.
- You are not giving me… therefore I am not appreciated or valued.
It was thinking where my SELF believes there is a lack and looks for what is lacking – rather than what that same SELF had been blessed with already. A SELF that is focused on a need for satisfaction and looks to the world or people for satisfaction -not the Lord.
I could also see the possible result of this disappointment and dissatisfaction in 2 Cor 12:20 (AMP), and it was very evident in my life:
“For I am afraid that perhaps when I come, I may find you not to be as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder;”
Find it not as I wished! Not having our expectations or wishes met is a breeding ground for a whole lot of relationship problems. We start to believe that we deserve better. And these reactions that are listed above, may lead us to ask what if there is never going to be any satisfaction?
I asked the Lord, if it would be better for my heart to give up hope and accept things as they are? To accept the situation with a resignation that says “it is what it is”. Isn’t it precisely in hoping for better that it feeds an impatience in me, causes a dissatisfaction to rise in me and make me angry and critical.
Are we not supposed to hope for something better?
The answer turned out to be something totally different. The Lord showed up and I found that the right attitude was not to give up on our hopes and desires, but to take on an attitude that says: not my will Lord, but yours.
It is good to hope, believe, pray and have expectation of blessing. But as soon as we put these desires before God’s will for our lives, and insist on our will, our way, our rights, at that moment is precisely when we lose the plot.
SELF raises its head, gets off the proverbial altar and starts to assert itself.
It is the very act of choosing His will in a situation, above my own will that is like a sacrament – an offering of grace, to God. A decision to live out my life into what may not be my first desire or want – is the offering. Jesus sets the example in choosing this path, Jesus speaking says:
“I can do nothing on my own initiative or authority. Just as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just (fair, righteous, unbiased), because I do not seek My own will, but only the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 5:30 AMP)
Jesus had desires wants and hopes just like we do, but He put his will in sub-ordinance to God’s will. In choosing this path, as the outward expression of my life, living at choosing his will over mine, it then becomes an expression of an inward conviction or work of grace in my heart (a sacrament to God.) It is not what actions I take in any situation, it is more my motivation in that situation, who I will be.
The motive in this attitude is to accept God’s will for my life, no matter what it may be.
A choice, and yes, it is a choice, to set aside my will and pursue God’s will in the situation.
A choice to choose His will.
Does it mean that all my wants, needs and desires are not going to be met? No, it means I set aside my insistence on these being met and instead promote God’s will in my heart.
Since ultimately his will and purpose for my life will be the best design for my life. Perhaps it is precisely when I surrender all that is not what I want that God can intervene in bringing some good into my life. Then it may just be that all these things that I am clamoring for now are meant to be mine in His will, but it will happen in His timing.
Lord, I choose to set aside my will for yours. I choose to give your will for my life priority over my will. The only way I can do it Lord, is to trust Your heart, who you are. You are good and You have good planned for my life, and nothing can separate me from Your love or prevent your goodness and mercy flowing into my life. I know that what I see and experience now, may not be what I want, but I do know that you work in all circumstances to bring about good in my life. Submitting to your will and timing in my life is positioning myself for your best in my life.
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