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| An art collage I did this past winter. |
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My art area. One of my heart's desires was to have an in-home studio where I could create, paint, draw. God provided this area in 2010 when we moved and I was 52. |
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What are your interests? Do they include caring for wildlife, helping the poor, drawing, singing, or hiking?
What are the things you enjoy spending time on? Do you like organizing, web surfing, cleaning, solving complex problems, or woodworking?
What are your desires? What do you wish would happen in your life or in your community? How might you help?
What door do you hope will open? Is there a secret door in your mind you are hoping God will open for you to walk through?
As a Christian woman, do you know that your deepest desires and even some of your whims are placed within you by God?
Philippians 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Perhaps you have a desire to write a book, to get a paid job, to earn a degree, to make friends, to cultivate a garden, to paint, to record music, to travel, and so on. Many of these are accomplishable desires.
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| I like to sit on my deck. I don't like to view the junk that might be under my neighbour's treehouse. So I wondered long and hard about how to enhance my view. And these door panels and old gazebo parts were sitting in my yard. I ordered a roll of peel & stick nature wall paper and created this privacy screen |
FOR GOD'S SAKE
Your desires aren't only about you and your happiness. While God likes to give good gifts to his children, the gifts and desires he places within you are ultimately for his glory and to accomplish his purposes. We may not understand the reason behind the things he gets us to do. We may not see how we glorified him in any adventure we undertook. We may not gain feedback about how anything we have done has helped another. Regardless, our part is to complete the assignment we sense he is asking us to do.
Mark 16:15-16 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel [publish openly the good news] to all creation."
WHAT TO DO ABOUT DESIRES
There is a chronic restlessness in humankind that is difficult to put a finger on. I've read that this underlying restless feeling is actually a yearning for heaven. This yearning needs to be tempered because we don't live in heaven while on earth. It makes sense that as humans we can try to fill our earthly life with all the right ingredients and still feel a void.
Have you ever experienced a let down after a fun event or after achieving a worthwhile goal? Do you have days when you feel both tremendously happy and content and empty at the same time? This is the restless dynamic we all deal with.
The ups and downs of life are part of our humanity. Happiness is hard to sustain. So rather than rely on one specific desire to be fulfilled to make you happy, ask God to course-correct your desires and help you to develop the ones he shows you.
A PRACTICAL LIST
Do you want to know some practical steps you can take to help hone your desires? Try working through this list:- Commit your plans to God. Proverbs 16:3 puts it this way, "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."
- Take your desires seriously for they are clues to your calling.
1 Corinthians 12:11 "All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines." - Ask God to fan your desires into flame. "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands." 2 Tim. 1:6
- Take small steps towards your hearts desires with realistic expectations. That is, don't shy away from them or use negative self-talk to talk yourself out of them "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Phil 1:6
- Practice, work hard, and do your best when given the chance to make your desires a reality. "We work wearily with our own hands to earn our living. We bless those who curse us. We are patient with those who abuse us" 1 Cor. 4:12 LB
- Leave the outcome to God. If you have specific expectations of how things should work, chances are you will be disappointed. Just take steps and see what God does with what you offer. "My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure" Isaiah 46:10
At the start of the pandemic, some ladies I knew made masks. Another makes cards. I purchased from them and gave
them to health care workers in my community.
Sometimes it seems as though our desires will never fully be realized. It helps to trust in this verse, Psalm 138:8. Here it is in various translations:
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