The Weight of our Want

“…but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…” Ge 2:17

When I was a teenager, I was one of the few in our group not allowed to go to the river unsupervised. It was a bone of contention that always left me embarrassed to tell my friends and irritated to be left out. Eventually, they quit asking me to go and it was hard hearing all the stories the following week at school recalling their time at the river. As a teenager I felt my parents were being unreasonable and suspicious. In retrospect, I can fully understand the motivation behind my parents’ decision...love and protection.

Since the beginning of time, God has fiercely worked to protect His children. He sets up restrictions in our lives, commands He gives us to live an abundant and disciplined life. He gave us the Ten Commandments, His word, the exemplified life of Jesus and His spirit within us to help us make good and beneficial decisions. But every now and then God will draw a line in the sand and make it abundantly clear that we are to keep our hands off an area of our life. Sometimes His answer is simply a delay, while some of His decisions have ‘no’ stamped on it. But whatever desire we are denied by God can always be traced back to His loving heart for us. If our desire for something rises above our obedience to God, there will be a price to pay. ‘There is a weight to our every want. Our obedience to God’s will of command is actually an indication of whether or not we trust Him. We have to be careful of viewing God’s restrictions as God being unfair…leading us to question God’s goodness. However, when our perspective changes and we see God’s restrictions as evidence of His protection, we see God’s goodness and care…His restrictions are truly a grace given to us.’ Trustworthy – Overcoming Our Greatest Struggles to Trust God, Lysa TerKeurst, p.19.

If the desire in our heart has not been given to us in our lives, we can trust God for His plans and timing, and thank Him for loving us enough to deny us. He has the perfect plan for all of us from our first breath to our last and every second in between.

"We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps" Proverbs 16:9