“Yet for all God’s good will toward us, He is unable to grant us our heart’s desires till all our desires have been reduced to one. When we have dealt with our carnal ambitions; when we have trodden upon the lion and adder of the flesh, have trampled the dragon of self-love under our feet and have truly reckoned ourselves to have died unto sin, then and only then can God raise us to newness of life and fill us with His blessed Holy Spirit.
For everyone that actually crosses over into the Promised Land there are many who stand for a while and look longingly across the river and then turned sadly back to the comparative safety of the sandy wastes of the old life!” ~A. W. Tozer, Born After Midnight
Oh how foolish our heart is! We pray to God to fill our cup with his goodness, mercy, and love, but we want it filled in our way, on our terms, and with what we desire. We ask for countless things that stray from his will. How arrogant have we become when we coddle such fleshly cravings before we first seek with all our being the holiness and majesty of the Almighty.
How often do we ask for God’s blessings and benefits only without first having that genuine longing for him and him alone? We want what he can offer but we don’t want to give up anything for him, and we want him to answer our prayers, however selfish they may be, but we don’t want to acknowledge and concede that he is the one who decides whether to grant them or not. And when he does not answer our prayer, are we angry or frustrated or lose faith because we want him to bow before us rather than for us to bow before him?
Our true colors show in how we approach the Creator. We continually ask for him to bend his hand down, but do we first raise our hands up and ask for nothing in return except he be glorified? Are we like a husband or wife who only values their lover for what they do for them, or do we admire, pursue, and devote ourselves to God simply on account of his virtue and character, whether we receive what we want from him or not. Worship is something that happens in one’s heart, and until our hearts have only ONE passion, we will not find ourselves drawing nearer to God. We will be like a shadow cast after the sun has passed over the sky…we will have missed seeing the splendor and wonder of who he truly is. We can desire many things but never be satisfied, or we can desire the one thing that will forever satisfy. ~JW
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.