NEVER REALLY WHAT YOU WANT

(Post by: Lilly Hobbs)

How often do you find yourself chasing after the things in life that you think you want? For many young people my age, relationships, trendy tennis shoes, the newest iPhones, thousands of Instagram followers, and status are at the top of the list.

Before starting to write down these thoughts that are on the forefront of my mind, curiosity led me to Google, “What do humans desire most?”. I found there to be a consistent theme in the articles that have been written in regard to this question. Most stating that once we have food, water, and shelter we must feel safety, belonging, and mattering. Those three things being what we desire most.

It may come as a bit of a surprise to you if you’ve been around here for a while, but I agree with these Google search results. We all desire to feel safe, to belong, and to matter to others. Those are not trivial or wrong desires/wants to have. In fact, they are the very things God put within us to move us towards having a relationship with Him.

The terrible trait mankind possesses, however, is that we pursue these wants and desires in sinful and careless ways, thinking only of our own gain and happiness without giving anyone else much thought. James 3:16 says, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”

Friends, take one good look at the people in the world right now. As all of us pursue what we think we want, it is completely obvious that we are not happy. We are not content. We don’t have peace, and what we think brings us peace is really just a week-long vacation from the mess of a life we have created and continue to choose every day.

You know what genuinely astonishes me about us today? It’s the fact that we pray and ask God to bless our disorder and dysfunction. We ask God to bless the life that we desperately want a vacation from, yet we come back to it time and time again and don’t change a thing.

A.W. Tozer once said, “Getting what you want is never really what you want. What you truly want is only found in Christ. Until He is your highest desire, you will still feel empty when you get everything else you want. Your heart was fashioned to fit perfectly in the hand of it’s Maker. Trust Him.”

We are the problem. We get in the way of our own hearts. The relationships, trendy tennis shoes, the newest iPhones, thousands of Instagram followers, and status will never be enough for us. There will always be something that, in our minds, is better than what we already have.

Yet we continue to try and find our identity in the temporary and fleeting things of this world, and we wonder what we’re all so afraid of. Is it really so hard to see? We’re afraid of losing the worldly safety, belonging, and mattering that we have put all of our hope, time, and effort into gaining.

My generation specifically is being raised on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication because they haven’t faced the fact that they will always feel empty and will never truly live until they die with Christ and get themselves out of the way.

I am so sick of watching my peers try every other solution first instead of running straight to the Savior. He is the ONLY ONE who can give us safety, who knows our need to belong better than anyone else, and tells us that we mattered to Him before we were ever born.

Getting what you want is never really what you want. We are our own problem, and until we get ourselves out of the way by surrendering all to Christ, we will only create more disorder within our lives.

What we want can only be found in Jesus. Real life change has to start with a longing heart.

“Who do I have in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth but you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.”  (Psalm 73:25-26)

SO WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?

= Do you long to change?

= What are you going to do differently?