You Can’t Always Get What You Wanted

This is a rerun from March 22, 2010, hope you enjoy!

Want: a) to desire greatly; wish for, b) to seek with intent to capture

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you were always thinking about it? It just consumed your mind and if you could get it then you would be completely happy. I struggle with this feeling pretty much every day of high school. “If I can just do better than this person on a test, I’ll feel satisfied.” “If I can just get this one guy to notice me then life will be perfect!” Sometimes it seems like you just won’t be happy until you get what you want, and this is something that we all deal with from time-to-time.

Why don’t I use an example to clarify? Last week my friends and I were in the cafeteria of our Physical Ed center and everyone was figuring out what they wanted to order. Now, the cafeteria has these large chocolate chip cookies that are absolutely delicious, but they only make about 3 of them a day, and this particular day there was just one left. So, there it was. That scrumptious cookie that had MY name written all over it…or so I thought. Just as I was walking over to claim my cookie, another girl from school snatched it up. Truth be told I wanted to pull a “Oh no you didn’t!” but I held it in. How dare she steal my cookie? That was SOOO my cookie! I wound up getting some other form of dessert but the situation bothered me for the rest of the day. Why did she have to take my cookie? And the sad thing is that the poor girl had no idea that I was so upset over this stupid cookie.

Okay, now you may be thinking, “Tovah, get a grip, it was just a cookie.” But seriously, we all have that little “cookie” somewhere in our lives. “He totally took my promotion.” “No she did not just pick up the last dress in my size!” “I was about to say something, but she just had to interrupt and steal my moment!” Why do we WANT things so much? And right after, “I want” there comes, “I need.” I didn’t just want that cookie, I NEEDED that cookie. In retrospect, I didn’t need the cookie, in fact I’m better off without it, but that didn’t matter at the time. One thing that I’ve learned throughout the past two years is that, when we’re too busy focusing on the things that we want, we tend to miss out on that which we really need.

Psalm 37:5 says, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Now don’t start jumping up down saying, “Sweet! If I show God that I’m happy all the time he’ll give me exactly what I want, YES!” Before you begin the happy dance, let’s look at the verse in context shall we? Psalm 37: 4-6 says, “3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this.” Now notice this verse does not say, God is going to give you everything that you want. It’s saying that God knows what is good for us and will give the things that we truly need. And I am not talking about that five hundred dollar Prada purse; chances are you probably don’t need that. ~smile~ What I’m saying is that God has so much more planned for us than we could ever want or imagine. Now this may be a hard concept to come to terms with, at times you may feel like, “God, why couldn’t I get this ONE thing that I really wanted, just this once, please!” While we may have wanted that one specific thing, we have to realize that God has something that is so much better in store for us.

I hope this blog helped you to realize that you don’t have to let that cookie ruin your day, because God has an even better “cookie” for you somewhere down the road. So in conclusion, “You can’t always get what you wanted, but you do get what you need.”



Until next time Peace Out!

Love ya,
Tovah


Ponnie will be back on Monday