Happy Thursday to you!
Life will present you with many choices that are pleasing to the senses. You may find a home on the market that is gorgeous, but the asking price is astronomical in comparison to your budget. You may peruse your favorite style magazine and come across a pair of shoes that costs more than your monthly income. Certainly, you can think of a moment where you made a choice based on temptation, forgoing wisdom or reason. Some people will blame their pleasure seeking behavior on human nature. Others claim that hedonism confirms that humans are merely intellectual animals. Rather than philosophize on why we do the things that we do, I want you to view this issue from a different point of view.
For those of you who believe in God, you know that many of the things that bring us pleasure are displeasing to God. When we give into temptation, we deliberately choose to honor ourselves and disgrace our Creator. In addition, when we become slaves to pleasure we show a tremendous lack of trust in God. More than anything we can desire for ourselves, God wants the best for us. Our plans for our lives are worthless in comparison to the greatness of God’s plans. That handbag you saw in the magazine may be enticing but it can never bring you a lasting sense of happiness. You may be able to finance that home on the market; afterwards, you will spend years in debt trying to keep up with the Joneses. Why not trust God for better? Why not trust God for the best?
If you have a need today, trust God to provide. Don’t scheme and contemplate ways to get the things that you want. Always seek God first. If He wants you to have that desire, He will align your resources and your opportunities to make it your reality. If God does not want you to have that desire, stop forcing its manifestation. Allow yourself to be content and at peace knowing that greater is coming. Until next time…
Love,
CompassionateLee
Isaiah 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. 3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. 4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. 5 Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee. 6 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.