Everything You Want!

I'm a PK...translation=Preacher's Kid. That means I literally cut my teeth on the pew, grew up knowing the "inside scoop" on church life, and was ingrained with the Christianese language (a mode of spoken communication only understood by long-term believers). Wow--I just realized that I am in fact bi-lingual...I've gotta start putting that on my resume!

Anyhow, growing up in church, my favorite Scripture became Psalm 37:4 - "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." I figured hey, I'm already in this church thing and I believe in Jesus, so this is telling me that I can just keep being a good little church boy and then God will give me everything I want...SWEET! I started a running list: a Lamborghini Countach (red), the helicopter from Airwolf, the Fall Guy's girlfriend (Heather Thomas, I think).

Needless to say, I don't drive a car that's worth more than my house and I'm not married to the co-star of an '80's mini-series (in fact, I married much better). I figured either God didn't like me much, or there was something wrong with my Biblical interpretation. Knowing God to be pretty incredible in the love department, I decided that I was at fault, and had to relinquish my hopes of being a self-prayed super hero.

That verse is still my favorite, but it means something entirely different to me today. I realize now that if we all got what we asked for, the world would be pretty jacked up (not to mention the fact that there's no way Lamborghini could keep up with demand). I think that our focus needs to be on the first half: "Delight yourself in the Lord." If we find our identity, our purpose, and our fulfillment in God, then the second half will ring true: "and he will give you the desires of your heart." He knows us better than we know ourselves--knows what will hurt us, what will excite us, what will fulfill us. When we choose Him and open our hearts to Him, He's then able to transplant our wrong desires with right ones. We find ourselves wanting different things that we did before (although a Countach would still be sweet to have).

It's pretty amazing how God can change your heart from just wanting for yourself to wanting for others. To go from dreaming only about your own life to being possessed to influence the lives of others. And then to realize that not only has God remade your heart, not only has He given you brand new desires, but now He's going to grant those new desires that He put inside of you...that's stinkin' AWESOME man!! You get to experience the fulfillment of your dreams--the dreams that count for something beyond this life, the dreams that you didn't just come up with on your own, the dreams that bring true joy and meaning to earthly existence.

That's my two-cents for today...and ya know what--my first blog ever! Hope you didn't fall asleep.