We all want something…many somethings, in fact. Wanting and desiring is always going to be part of the human experience. So the question then is “whatchu want”? Let’s all admit it: our “wanter” is broken. We want things we shouldn’t want. We don’t want what we should and would be good for us to want. We are “wanter” challenged. Even in the best of us at our most sincere moments we can find our hearts to be utterly deceitful as Jeremiah has said in Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Do you want God as God or for God to just bless you with gifts and kindness and take you to heaven someday? It’s easy to relegate God to our Spiritual Santa Claus or God Vending Machine.How can I say this? It is evident when we become angry and irate when we don’t get what we wanted. Sure, God wants and does give us things for us to enjoy but ultimately God is seeking to give us Himself, which is the greatest gift of all. He desires for us to want Him and not just what He has to offer us.
We find this to be true in other relationships, which ultimately symbolize how we treat God, don’t we? There are some people we use: some we don’t want to be around but they are good at getting us farther ahead or giving us what we want. Then there are others that we love being around and that we really want to KNOW. God wants to be in this latter category. It’s not that God is hard to get to know; it’s just that it’s hard for us to LET GO of our stuff and selfish desires to know Him.
Do you seek great things for yourself? —Jeremiah 45:5
God doesn’t have a problem with us having great things as long as they draw us closer to Him and His heart. It’s when our hearts become obsessed and overtaken, enamored more by the gift than the Giver that there is a problem. When what we want is no longer Him but more time with the gift or being consumed with the gift, that our relationship begins to die. As a leader, it is important to remember than each and every gift, whether it is the gift of leadership, speaking publicly or influencing people privately, is to be used to point others to the God Who gave us the abilities. It’s to help others want to want God; not to make ourselves popular or famous.
In His kindness, God allows us to ask for whatever we want. There is no boundary for what we ask. However, there is a limit to what God will give us. God doesn’t just haphazardly answer our prayers. He answers all prayers in ways that will bring us closer to Him and ultimately bring Him the most glory. Sure God gives us good things but be certain that anything that we have or anything that happens to us is because God wants us to want Him more.
Oswald Chambers said:
Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores your present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He’s continually working out His ultimate perfection for you— “…that they may be one just as We are one…” (John 17:22).
So whatchu want? Is it more of God? Or just His blessings?
Final thought: If God is what you desire most, it will be revealed in how you treat everything else you have and every other relationship. Are you willing to LET GO of everything to possess only Him?
georgelockhart.com 
Reblogged this on vision2hear.