Learning to Not Rely on My Desires + Finding True Satisfaction in Christ

I wrote this blog in first person because it is really personal and I know that through it I can find my healing. I pray it encourages you as much as it encourages me.


I tend to put my hope into the wrong things. I tend to envision how I want my life to play out with little to no guidance from God. I say I want God's will but I pray selfish prayers because I am so attached to my own desires. But I set myself up for disappointment when I depend on every outcome to match my expectations. I can easily become discouraged when things don't go as I expected because I relied so heavily on my own will.

The desires of my heart will never cease attempting to dispense all my hope but they must yield before the desire that sustains me: drawing closer to God. God knows my heart. He knows the desires I possess. And He longs to fulfill each of those desires. Psalm 37:4 says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Just because I have desires that have yet to be fulfilled, it doesn't mean God is dismissing my desires. Everything happens according to His timing and every season looks different. My desires not being met now doesn't insinuate that they will never be met.

Sometimes I get so caught up in the potential of something happening, that I fail to fully realize that God may have something totally different and better in mind. What my flesh longs for will ultimately deceive me into believing that I can only be satisfied if those longings are met. That's simply not true. If I'm not satisfied in Christ, first and foremost, then I'll be left dissatisfied in every area of my life with or without my desired being fulfilled. When I block out the voices of my heart's desires and steadily seek God, it is then and only then that I sense true satisfaction and pleasure.

I love what Isaiah 58:11 says: And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. So even when it feels like I am in the "wilderness," or when it feels like my heart is being deprived, God is eager to guide me and be the source of my satisfaction.

I will end on this quote from Elizabeth Elliott: God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God never denies us our heart’s desire except to give us something better.




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