Unmet Desires

Think about a desire that you have that has not happened yet. Maybe you long for a community where you feel known and loved, maybe you desire to have a girl say “yes” to a date with you, maybe you desire a boyfriend who will pursue you and lead you, maybe you desire a family member to come to faith in Christ, maybe you desire your children to walk with God, maybe it’s some other desire. What feelings rise to the surface when you think about that desire? Do you tend to bury your true feelings because you don’t want to feel the disappointment of that desire that has not yet been fulfilled?

Living with that unmet desire can be painful at times, but waiting well can also be one of the biggest blessings in our lives if we learn how to wait well. I want to encourage us not to waste our years of “waiting” for our desires.

Psalm 37:4-7 says, “ Delight yourself in the Lord ; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him , and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday.  Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him .” (emphasis mine) Often when we read this verse, we focus on the part, “God will give you the desires of your heart”, but we don’t really take into account our part, “delight in the Lord, rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” What does that mean to delight?

One of my best friends had her first baby a couple of years ago and just recently had another. When I get to be around her children, I genuinely delight in them. I enjoy them. I want to be around them. I delight in every smile they give me and in every moment they get excited. THAT is how God longs for us to DELIGHT in HIM. He wants my affection, He wants me to enjoy His presence, He desires for me to be captivated by Him.

Take a date night with the Lord; go for a walk and praise Him during it; journal; read the psalms. I think we often make excuses that we don’t have time. But if
Mr. McDreamy wanted to take us on a date to watch the sunrise, we’d be up plenty early enough to feel ready to let the man of our dreams pursue us. Or if our favorite celebrity wanted to meet us for dinner, we’d find the time! We have the time- the question is, are we making HIM a priority with the time we have?

You may be asking, “So Ali, why do I need to wait well with my unmet desires?” I’m so glad you asked! The #1 thing that I see happen when I don’t keep my unmet expectations in check is bitterness - toward God, toward every girl with a boyfriend, toward every new person that gets engaged, toward every mom. See, when we are hurting and feeling alone and we are afraid that we will stay there for the rest of our lives, we want relief, we want to DO something. And if we’re not careful, we will naturally move into bitterness because letting our feelings go there makes us think we are doing something about our problem.

HERE IS A GOOD SELF CHECK TO SEE IF YOU’RE BITTER: WHENEVER YOU LIVE FEELING ENTITLED TO YOUR ANGER, OR YOU JUSTIFY YOUR RESENTMENT, YOU ARE PROBABLY EXPERIENCING BITTERNESS.

Hebrews 12:15 tells us, “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble…” When we have roots that are bitter, can you imagine what kind of fruit is being produced in our lives?

So I mentioned that one of the causes of bitterness is unmet expectations. You expect that when you graduate from college, you will have some hardware on that left finger of yours, you will marry Mr. Right, and live happily ever after. Maybe it’s that you expect because you go to church for 3 months straight and the girl you like sees you there every Sunday, that she will say “yes” when you ask her to lunch. And right now, maybe you’re in your junior year and Mr. Right is nowhere to be found. Our maybe you get up the courage to ask out the girl and find out via Facebook that now she is in a relationship. Maybe your unmet expectations are in the area of not being able to have children, or the children you do have want nothing to do with God. We need to learn how to deal with the pain so that we don’t become bitter.

I had a dear friend who was getting close to getting engaged. I knew this meant that she would be moving away, I knew it meant that she would have a new relationship that was now a higher priority than our friendship. Was I happy for my friend? Yes! Did I want her to marry the guy? Yes! Was it hard? Yes! I remember helping her [now] husband as he planned how he would propose to her and having a party at my house that night so that they could share with everyone that they were engaged. I was happy to do this for my friend but I’ll be honest with you: when the last guest left my house from their engagement party, I cried out to the Lord. I needed to let myself feel. Those were real feelings and when we don’t take them before the Lord, we can become bitter. I journaled to God that night - in my big blue chair where I often meet with God flowed real raw emotions, but I was taking them to the Lord and letting Him meet me in that place and not going to people or guys or alcohol or fill in the blank. He is enough. We need to learn to take our pain and hurts to Him so that we don’t move into bitterness.

OUR HOPE NEEDS TO BE IN THE LORD: NOT IN A BOY, OR A GIRL, OR A RELATIONSHIP, OR OUR JOB, OR CHILDREN, OR FILL IN THE BLANK. OUR HOPE NEEDS TO BE IN THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, THE ONE WHO DIED A BRUTAL DEATH TO WIN US, WHO HOLDS EVERYTHING IN THE PALM OF HIS HANDS. PUT YOUR HOPE IN HIM AND YOU’RE ON YOUR WAY TO EXPERIENCING THE BEST LOVE STORY THAT WAS EVER WRITTEN.