Waiting, Contentment and Desires

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Waiting is hard. Especially when you have a desire for something. For instance, the desire in a girl to get married and have babies is hard. You want a man to hold you, to come home to you, to call you his own wife. You want a little baby to hold in your arms, a baby that is your own, a baby you don't have to give back to his mother and say goodbye to. Don't get me wrong, these aren't bad desires, they are wonderful, beautiful God-given desires! He wants us to desire to be a wife and mother! Marriage and motherhood is the highest calling for a woman that there is! But what do we do with this desire when there isn't an eligible guy in sight and hence babies are even farther away?

"Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in His way..." ~ Psalm 37:3-7

 God has you in the circumstances you're in right now for a reason. I think we've all heard the phrase, "Bloom where you are planted". It's the concept that God has you in this season of life for a reason and that we are to be content right where we are, not focused on another stage or another episode of life. Jeremiah Burroughs once said, in his book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment,

 "Christian Contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition."

I love the last phrase. It "freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition." Think about every single word in that phrase. This is something I definitely haven't attained yet! So, our prayer when we have these desires is to ask God for more contentment in our present circumstances.


Another way to help with these good desires is to channel them into action. When Psalm 37 verse 7 says to "Be still and wait patiently for the Lord", it's not saying to sit around and twiddle your thumbs until God brings you your heart's desire, it's saying to not force the issue. Don't try to "make" it happen. Wait on the Lord, He will do it! But while you're waiting on the Lord, it's our job to conform ourselves to His image and become more like Him in every way. So while you're waiting for Prince Charming to appear on the scene, your job is to become more like Christ. What sins do you struggle with on a daily basis? Work (with the Spirit, of course!) on eradicating that from your life. Ask God to show you what He wants you to work on. Here's another thought about that: what if God isn't bringing that Man into your life because of a certain sin in your life? Ask God to show you! He's always willing to, I promise.


And one last thought. Proverbs 31 verse 12 says, "She [the wife] does him [her husband] good, and not harm, all the days of her life." It doesn't say, "she does him good all the days of their marriage," it doesn't even say, "she does him good all the days that she knows him"! It says, "all the days of her life." So how can you be doing good for your husband now? Instead of pining away for Mr. Right, how can you be conforming yourself to become more like Christ and do your Mr. Right good right now?


Love,
Anna