Getting What We Want

https://odb.org/MY/2022/02/07/getting-what-we-want-2

History is filled with people getting what they wanted and those who didn’t. The bible itself records such instances as in the case of Adonijah and Solomon, or even Saul and David. We also see what happened between Jacob and Esau or Cain and Abel. People react badly when they didn’t get what they wanted. But fortunately in the case of Jacob, God turned Jacob around when he wrestled with the angel and he became Israel. He got what he wanted by deceit and craftiness and God had to change and transform him and put him through a period of 20 years with Laban to fully turn him around before using him for His glory.

But the point today is what do we do if we don’t get what we wanted or had aspired for? This could mean that promotion, that position, that house, that car, that million dollars, that pastoral office, that leadership status whether at work or in the church or ministry. It could mean that large department or that large church or that large mission organisation that we used to lead. We might have worked very hard all these years for that but unfortunately it is not meant to be. We see that very clearly in our present local political scene of old politicians trying to relive their past, trying to achieve their dreams even in their old age.

I think we have got it all wrong if we had been pursuing our own dreams and desires. Even if we had got what we wanted, it wouldn’t be good enough to satisfy our most innermost needs. It becomes worse when we didn’t get what we wanted. We are filled with disappointment, anger, bitterness, hatred and even revengeful desires – all negative elements that will eat us up and make us only a shadow of what we could have been in God. I recalled a founding pastor of a church who dreamed about having 100 churches in cities in Malaysia and abroad and in the end, could not even build a simple church building for the church even though they were given the land and had raised the finances. Why? Even the building itself had to be a grand affair!

In the end, I feel it’s best we pursue what God wants for us than what we want ourselves. Go for God’s plans and purposes for us that He had planned for us since the beginning of time. That is what matters at the end of the day or should I say at the end of time. What if we achieved what we wanted or didn’t achieve what we wanted? Will that matter in the scheme of things? What matters is did we achieve what God wanted for us? Did we fulfil what Jesus wanted us to do? What is it that Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit had earmarked for us to do as part of the many tasks for the Kingdom of God? We know that Christ is the Head of the body and we a part. Which part is ours? Which brick is it ours to lay in the building that is Christ? No point laying our own brick at another building. We do our part and that’s what matters in the end.