Pastors care about numbers, Jesus cares about hearts.
In fact, God will go to great lengths to humble us in order that we may serve Him with pure hearts.
Not convinced? Just ask Abraham who waited decades for his promised son to be born.
Or Joseph, who waited years to see his family bow before him, as shown in the dream God gave him.
Just ask Moses, Joshua, Daniel, or Jesus.
All these people experienced times of spiritual silence and/or testing before they received what God promised to provide.
In David’s story, Saul tried everything to convince a noble warrior in his army to fight Goliath, and to no avail.
He bribed the men by promising his daughter’s hand in marriage, promising him wealth, and promising him to be exempt from paying future taxes(1 Samuel 17:26)!
Even after hearing all this, David was unimpressed and undeterred by such fleeting pleasures and was determined to bring God the glory He deserved.
David cared about God’s reputation, not Saul’s reward.
As I mentioned in Part I, spending time in God’s presence allowed David to have such a unique perspective.
Let’s be clear, God is not a wishing well.
If we want God to bow down to our desires we can pray until the day Jesus comes back again waiting on His response.
Our desire should be His command.
When we align our hearts and actions to the will of God, dynamic things start to happen in our prayer life.
Anxiety gives way to peace, gloom turns to joy, and giants begin to fall.
A Scripture that has long served me well is as follows:
“Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.” – Proverbs 4:26 ESV
Ask “is this desire selfish, or is God in this too?”
Asking the hard questions before we act is a great way to ponder the path our feet tread upon.
Do we have an ulterior motive to what we are chasing?
Is there self-interest in our actions, engagements, and investments?
Dying to self and living for God(Luke 9:23) is a giant leap in overcoming our own goals, obstacles, and fears we face today.