From the Word

GOD'S DESIRES?
I had an interesting conversation recently with a total stranger over the phone. For the sake of this study, we'll call her "Lois." She was calling for our church secretary (who was not in) and when she found out I was the music pastor at our church the conversation turned to worship. She shared that she had just taken a spiritual gifts assessment and her number one gift was "worship leader." She found that strange, since she could not play an instrument, could not sing and had never even been involved in the worship ministry at her church. Lois then lowered her voice and said, "ya' know I always secretly had this desire to be up in front of people and be a worship leader but I didn't think I could." I chuckled a little and said, "Well, it certainly will be a God thing for you to become a worship leader." She agreed.

Here's the point. How do we determine whether we are acting on our desires or on God's desires? It seemed that in the case of Lois, her secret desires were overtaking God's desires. I do not want to discount the fact that God can do whatever God wants to do but there seems to be two things to avoid here. One, that we don't sit around and wait for God to magically give us a special talent when He really has something else in mind for us or two we try to push our way into an area we have very little ability to do. I am not trying to be harsh. There are many things I desire and I can easily convince myself that surely these are God's desires as well, but if I look deeper, I shamefully admit many times my desires have nothing to do with pleasing God but are more about pleasing me. What's the solution?

SCRIPTURE READING
Psalm 37:3-5, Psalm 145:14-16, Psalm 119:1-8, Psalm 73:23-26, Philippians 3:7-11

BOTTOM LINE
My desires need to be focused on GOD not on what I want to DO for God.