The difference between what I want and wh
at God wants is one of the hardest things to discern. I’m not talking about the obvious things that are clearly against God’s will- the “sin” things or the “self” things. But it’s the good thing that often gets in the way of the best thing that God wants for us.
I was having this conversation with a friend of mine recently and we both realized how often opportunity comes our way. This can be flattering and fulfilling, but that should never be our reason for deciding on it. We are tempted to validate the opportunity when it validates us. In other words, if it’s something that we truly feel “fits us” we can easily make adjustments in our lives to make it work. This is especially true when it’s something that I am passionate about. But I’ve learned through the years that my passion for something doesn’t always mean that this is what God is up to.
Certainly the apostle Peter was passionate about keeping Jesus from going to the cross, but that wasn’t God’s will. And Judas seemed to be passionate about helping the poor instead of wasting precious resources, but we all know how that turned out.
What are you passionate about? Is it your passion or God’s? Could it be that in order to get God’s best, we must let go of our good and noble desires? I believe that this is the starting place, and that regardless of how long we have been serving God, we have to keep coming back here. So, let’s take an inventory of our passions of the good things we are pursuing and lay them on the altar, right beside the things we already know are not good, and ask God to burn away the chaff and return something pure, something that He wants for us.
-Peter
