Godly Wishes

Did you ever dream of having a genie that would grant your wishes?

Think of all that you could have at your whim or all the trouble that you could quickly escape!

There are many people who think God should be their personal genie. They want him to make their dreams come true and make their troubles disappear.

They’re actually limiting God and missing out on who he is!

God is so much more than what we can conjure up in our minds. In fact, he is unfathomable. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). God’s ways of working are better than what we can wish for ourselves. Since he is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, he knows us better than we know ourselves. Through our difficulties, God is with us. Believe it or not, sometimes what we see as trouble is the way God draws us nearer to himself. Our loving Father wants us close.

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4 ESV, letter D in Keep on Track). Have you considered what delighting in the LORD means? In the surrounding verses, David gives godly wisdom to “trust in the LORD, and do good… commit your way to the LORD… be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.” These are God-centered actions, not self-centered.

As we learn more of who God is and what his truths are – by the work of the Holy Spirit – the words of Jesus will be rich in our heart and mind. In thankfulness to God, then, we are to teach his wisdom to others and offer him the praise he is due (Colossians 3:16). All this sounds like delighting in the Lord! Notice how his desires will become ours as we set our minds on him, loving and worshiping him.

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” we read in Philippians 4:13 (NIV, letter I in Keep on Track Volume 2). We know the him is God, but what are the all things? In our self-centeredness, we may think those are what we want to do – our goals, without consideration of God’s goals for us. God has the best plans for us because he designed us and he knows our past, present, and future. God strengthens  us with what we need to do his will. To help us honor him, God gives us relationship with him, his written Word, the Holy Spirit, and other believers.

God gives us the choice to love him and live in his truth. He will, therefore, grant the wish of those who turn from him and live in rebellion. 2 Timothy 2:12b tells the sobering reality that “if we deny him, he will also deny us” (ESV). May we instead heed the warning of Hebrews 3:12-13: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (ESV).

As followers of Jesus, let’s abide in him, delight in him, and rely on him.

He “is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work in us” (Ephesians 3:20 NIV).

Develop your delight in the Lord as you use a Keep on Track book each day.