What ARE your desires? Are they only carnal/secular? Will God answers these? (The answer is… I think it depends on what those desires are.)
“Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” [Psalm 37:4]
‘And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” [Matthew 6:7-8]
‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures … Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” [James 4: 3-4]
Actually… yes, these scriptures are related and expand our understanding. First: the Father knows our needs also needs separate from wants, though not all wants are necessarily wrong. Second: we are told to ask. AND we are ‘warned’ why our requests aren’t always answered thus giving us a context in which and how to ask. I think the asking should be according to the Word, which tells us what. The asking is not begging. The Lord tells us in Hebrews to come boldly… for help in time of need. But I also think He doesn’t mind when our coming is for a ‘want’.
Desires. That’s a plural word probably because we have plural desires. But don’t mistake wants for desires though wants can be the first step in becoming a desire. According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia desire is defined as:
“to long for,” “to ask for,” “to demand,” and may be used in a good or bad sense”.
I really don’t have much disagreement with this definition until we see… ‘to demand’. Very uncomfortable with that. But it also makes us stop and think… how do we present our wants, our desires our needs???? Is there a note of demand? I do believe that a want can ‘grow’ into a desire but there are also differences. Is a desire ever only a want? More important – how do You define the words? One thing I am confident of is that the presenting the need/want/desire should never be a demand.
Back to desire(s), What do you do about yours? Do you ask the Lord? Do you try and stuff them down? Do you try and distance yourself from them? What’s YOUR response? Repeating the first scripture:
“Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, …” [Psalm 37: 4-5]
The answer: Delight, Commit, Trust. When you do these things then you will be asking according to His will and whatever He gives… it will be spot on. Focus. When our focus is on the Lord then our intent will follow suit which will define our desires. What are you looking at??? and for???
