The fear of the wicked will fall upon him,
And the wish of the righteous will be fulfilled. . .
The hope of the righteous will be joy,
But the hope of the wicked will be destroyed.
(Proverbs 10:24,28)
There is a sense in which only the righteous will get what they want. Ultimately, those who have bypassed God’s will to achieve their desires will find that the satisfaction of their desires has brought them not fulfillment but disappointment.
The insidiousness of sin is that it takes the desires that God has given us and causes us to satisfy those desires in illegitimate ways. Take sexual desire, for example. God gave us that desire and ensured its actual fulfillment. However, when we try to satisfy that desire in ways God has forbidden, not only do we sin but we fail to get what we thought we were after. It may be pleasurable momentarily, but in the long run no amount of sexual immorality will be as gratifying as committed love within a marriage relationship. But this is just an example. The same can be said about any desire. Accomplish this in God-ordained ways and you will get what you want. Accomplish this through prohibited means and eventually you will find yourself disappointed. “The hope of the righteous will be joyful, but the hope of the wicked will be destroyed.”
It is arrogant to assume that we can have whatever we want, get it however we want, and then enjoy it as much as we want. In fact, we can take whatever we want, but it is in God’s power to prevent us from enjoying what we have taken. In Ecclesiastes, we are taught that a person who acquires “riches and riches” can consider himself blessed only if God “has given him power to eat it also” (Ecclesiastes 5:19; 6:2). So getting what we want may be harder than we thought.
I believe two things are essential: (1) we need to be grateful for the hopes, aspirations, and desires that God has placed in our hearts, and (2) we need to be willing to fulfill those desires. On his terms. God wants nothing but the best for us. To seek anything other than His will for your life is to set your feet on a path that leads to nothing but disappointment in the end.
“Man finds it hard to get what he wants because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give because he will give the best and man will not take it” (George MacDonald).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com AreYouaChristian.com
