You got what you wanted, but did you get what you wanted?

[HKHaugan]

Getting What You Want

You got what you wanted but did you get what you wanted?

The question was prompted by how we look back on our life's choices and decisions. So much of what we desire we're quick to interpret as a need which becomes a momentary distraction that turns out to be a momentary attraction prompting a momentary reaction to achieve momentary satisfaction. It's the old Adam and Eve thing, seeing the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they were told to leave alone. There, in that one moment, they had a choice. The devil, the master of momentary temptation, encouraged them, saying they wouldn't die if they took a bite. He suggested that whatever they see in every next moment is to be satisfied. But they need momentary justification. The tree is there in the moment. You can see it. Contemplate it. Use your reason. If God made it, it must be good; good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom (Gen.3:6). After all didn't God make it? Forget what He said. Desire is good. Desire is need and need must be satisfied. That moment carried the future of human response and their choice apart from God made temptation the devil's weapon from then on.

If we apply this dynamic to everything we face everyday it speaks to what human wisdom has become, the best way to survive in every next moment. That includes every personal, relational, emotional and physical situation. Consequently every individual has a control issue. That control issue is fueled by fear and pride. This makes every next moment a spiritual moment and spiritual moments belong to the Lord and the Lord's moments can only be bathed by faith in Him. Can we now see why the Cross becomes the object to direct our choices and decisions? Taking up ours is how we know the Spirit works in those moments through Scripture. So it is not our wisdom but the Spirit who brings the wisdom of God into each of our moments through taking up our cross which is faith in Him.

So the really big thing is wisdom, the ability to always make right choices and decisions the way God does. Therein lies the crux of the matter. Only God can do what God thinks and does. Our likeness of God is stimulated to grow with that ability. It's impossible to be wise without God. We can see things and experience them but the way we use them depends on God's wisdom. Without His wisdom we are naked and that was the nakedness Adam and Eve experienced. We inherited that nakedness from them. Again that wisdom is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that gives us the ability to make right choices and decisions. We are naked without Him which is why we have to be spiritually born, born again from above.

Returning to that question we started with, “You got what you wanted but did you get what you wanted?” When we make a choice, a decision, we make them to get more than the object of the moment. We gave ourselves to the goal for the moment but there is another want that is hidden in our choices---the feeling of accomplishment, the lasting sense of peace and stability, relational and emotional fulfillment and that inner heart sense that we were right. That's what a relationship with Jesus is all about. We get something in the moment but did we get what we were really after by making that choice?

OK. Try this. You got the car, the house, the lady, the job, the trophy, the membership, the money. But did you get the fulfillment that your heart wanted? Did those things bring that sense of inner satisfaction that lasts? You got what you wanted but did you get what you were really after? If you didn't, well, let's talk Jesus.