DESIRES

        The past couple months I have tried to spend a lot of time in prayer, reflecting and in the word.  I think I have found out a lot about myself and one being I think I have made many decisions based on what I think I need and not want.  Now, do not get me wrong, this is good to a degree but I kept thinking my "wants" and "desires" were selfish and not what was best.  However, through this self reflection, I see this is ok!
       I definitely think God wants us to have the desires of our heart.  "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart" Psalm 37:4  When you go after only what you "think" you need, things are obviously going to go astray, and that happened to me.  When I threw my desires away and focused only on what I thought I need, I changed my way of living, thinking, and doing to continue to fit the mold of what I thought I needed to be, all the while inside I was miserable.  I knew this was not what truly made me happy but I thought it would make my life better. Boy was I wrong.  In this process, I lost myself, I stopped doing what made me happy, what I enjoyed and I put my goals and aspirations on hold and in the misery my walk in Christ suffered.
     I recently have actually been praying that God open doors for the desires of my heart and guess what, he has.  One of them being doing missions.  It is so exciting that God has abled me to find a way to do this mission trip and continue to provide for it, even when I have doubted it.  BUT he knows this is such a huge desire of mine!  I also have more desires and what I am learning is if you have a strong convection with it, it probably is not from God.  I have had one that I just continue to pray Lord if this is not from you please take this desire away and although he is not taking it away, he is telling me to be patient with it.  And things will work themselves out.  But see this is hard for me, I want things now and yesterday, I do not want to wait.  However, in this wait God is preparing this "desire" to be even better.  I still need to develop myself in the person He needs me to be.  It almost appears to be too good to be true. I feel there is no way this could be for me, because I am underserving of what I see as almost perfection, but what I see as almost perfection, is from the desire He has put on my heart.  I also see it at face value and say oh man there is no way that will be good for me, but then God reminds me there is so much more than just what appears at the surface and I need to pray to get a glimpse of the "heart" involved.  It falls into the category of something I have wanted and I used to think oh this would be bad for me, but that just is not the case.  I am learning to have trust in hearing God, patience in waiting for God's timing, and faith that when I keep my eyes focused on Him, I will have my desires.