The Secret To Wanting What God Wants

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

On Finishing Well, we help you make godly choices about Medicare, long-term care, and your money. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it. Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Today, we're going to be talking about the secret to wanting what God wants.

And it is a secret, because if you think about it, it's a challenging thing. I mean, it sounds so good to just say it. I mean, as believers, shouldn't we always say it? As believers, shouldn't we all want what God wants? But, you know, really, seriously, can we talk?

Can we be honest? Sometimes we don't. And it takes some effort to get there, James.

It really does for me. Why don't you take it from here? You know, you're handing it off to me just as a hard part, aren't you, Robert? Oh, absolutely.

Go get them, tiger. Well, here's the thing. When we talk about wanting what God wants, it's a little like the songs that we sing in worship sometimes. Do you ever sing the words to a hymn or a praise song, and, you know, just as the words are coming out of your mouth, you have to check yourself. You know, you sing something like, you know, Lord, I'm all yours, or I give myself away to you, or whatever. And as soon as you say it, you think something like, I really mean that. Can I honestly say that to God?

Am I really willing to give myself entirely to Him? Again, like you were saying, let's be honest. Oh, yeah. I mean, I know it happens to me, and it's, you know, I'm glad you're covering this, because I'm interested. One of the things that happens at Peace Church when we're singing praise songs is we encourage people to pray something like, Lord, I want to feel this way, but I'm not sure I'm really there yet. Help me to feel this way. Help me to give myself to you, or whatever it is we're singing.

Help me to go in this direction that I'm saying my heart already is moving in. And I think that's really important, because if we don't pray like that when we sing something and we're not sure we mean it, I've heard it said that the church doesn't say her lies if she sings them. And even though that sounds harsh, you know, it's real if we sing one thing on Sunday and go out and live another way during the week.

So, you know, we never mean what we say and what we sing. To God, we want to get this right. We need to get this right, because so much depends on it, and that brings us to the secret of wanting what God wants. It starts by asking Him. If we ask, He'll help us want what He wants. Yeah, I mean, really, that's what He promised to do in James 1-5, right? He tells us if we lack wisdom, we should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and He will give it to us.

Yeah, that's right. And it starts with asking, but that's just the first part. And another great example of this is Solomon's prayer, asking for wisdom to rule, and later at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8-58 when he prays, May the Lord give us a desire to do His will in everything. What a great prayer.

I mean, there it is. Lord, help me to want what You want. I love that prayer. So here you see Solomon off to a great start in life, and God blesses him, but he doesn't finish well. He gets tripped up by his blessings.

He gets tripped up by the number of wives that he has, Scripture says, and that should also show us something. Yeah, I mean, it does point to asking is just the beginning of learning to want what God wants, doesn't it? Right, it's just the first step. God's Word makes it clear that we have to delight ourselves in His Word as well, so there's that daily connection with Him in our relationship that should result in obedience. So if we're going to pray, help me to want what You want, the next step is to follow through with what we know already.

But there's even more to it than that, really, isn't there? I mean, wanting what God wants isn't just about wisdom or even obedience. It's also about discerning where God is leading in that particular moment. Oh, Robbie, I'm so glad you bring that up, because sometimes we face choices that are not between right and wrong, necessarily, but rather about living after God's heart, walking in step with His Spirit. You know, it might not be this overt choice between good and evil, but it's a choice of, you know, who am I serving? Am I serving Him in what I'm thinking about? And, you know, so I think the third step is we really have to listen, and the leading for this can come through some very interesting places. I mean, God has ways of talking to us that, you know, will just blow you away. Yeah, and speaking of that, you were telling me a story about that, really, just right before we went on the air.

Yeah, yeah. The other day I was going through a situation with someone I love, a younger child in our family, and I found myself, you know, kind of falling into that disciplinarian role and starting to go down a certain road, and discipline is good, don't get me wrong. But I found myself, my attitude wasn't quite right, and I had some good reasons to feel the way that I did, but God began to show me through several things that, you know, things I was reading, other conversations that happened when I had a prayer time with some other pastors. He was really showing me, okay, you're on the right path, but I want something better for you.

There's more for you here. He wanted me to be an encourager and an example in faith for that loved one, and so what happens is he begins to do this work in my heart, and over the next couple of days, I found him teaching me again and again. And, you know, one day, for example, he puts this song on my mind, and it's an entirely secular song. I'm thinking, where did that come from? I couldn't get it out of my head. So, I hadn't heard this song in years, but it kept running through my head, and I looked it up on my phone, and as I started to play it, you know, I'm watching the video, and oh my gosh, this video tells a story I had no idea about. And it was really all about missing children, about the attitudes of children, and, you know, about the regrets in that person's life, about certain choices he had made, and man, I'll tell you, as I started to watch that, I felt God saying, pay attention here.

Pay attention. And of course, you know, as the guy who writes a book about praying for prodigals and thinking about choices I made in my own kid's life and how, you know, I had at times wished I'd had a better attitude with them. Lord, thank you so much for showing us the beauty and the joy of wanting what you want in this episode. Lord, help us to pause long enough to ask that question and see the joy of walking with you, because sometimes you don't give us the whole answer, because you want to savor the relationship, and we want that with you too, Lord. Help us to see that, experience it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. This is the Truth Network.