Blog – When Desires Become Demands.

An uncomfortable thought but an important moment to practise the pause, stop, and do a heart check.

Friend, are you making demands from God?

Have you allowed your heart’s desires to become idols in your life?

Desires that become demands become self-inflicted chains that wrap around our hearts and minds. We find ourselves demanding of God – weaponizing scripture out of context to see our wants met.
When we demand from God, we say to Him His gift was not enough, we tell Him He owes us more than He has given, and that we know best.

A familiar scripture – Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” 

We need to understand this does not mean as Christians God will give us everything we want.
As any good parent will tell you, to give a child every heart’s desire regardless of whether it is going to bless them or become a curse isn’t good parenting.

To delight in Him is to have our heart enfolded into His. It is to be in His name and in His word, not just use them, but allowing them to shape and mold us, heal and align us. We submit our understanding to His, our will to His, and become transformed in the likeness of Him as we focus on seeking His face not just His hand.

To align our hearts in Him requires a complete surrendering of desires.

We have to learn to understand that all good ideas are not necessarily God ideas. And all good desires are not necessarily good for us! Sometimes those hearts desires need shaping, refining, redirecting or removing and until we open our hands, loosen our grip on them and allow the love of our heavenly Father to tend to them according to His will, we remain stuck, in bondage to something that He would have us hold differently or perhaps even not at all.

Hard Truth – Demanding from God is switching places with Him … we place ourselves on the throne and exalt our position above His will .

Clinging to desires without being willing to lay them at His feet completely is idolatry and it creeps in so subtle, riding on the wings of good intention it settles in the edges of our thoughts and snuggles up around the desire that is held so dearly. It’s so easy to make idols out of good things, Godly things, but anything exalted higher than the pursuit of His face is exactly that. Idolatry.

Our first responsibility, our one true desire is to seek Him first. His presence, His face. In His presence we are aligned, made right, our hearts and minds become renewed, and those heart desires are adjusted according to His good plan for us. What we once longed for loses its appeal and our hearts hunger differently as our understanding of God and Who He is and who we are in Him expands.

From here we claim the promise of Matthew 6:33 – “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

It requires honest self-reflection, a pause and a moment to check our hearts and hands to see what we are harbouring and holding to tightly. We humble ourselves and lay it all down God hears.

Jeremiah 29:12 – Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.

When we lay our longings at His feet, no longer holding tightly and trust Him with the outcomes, He blesses our surrender.
Lamentations 3:25 -” The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.”

When we allow Him access to the honest landscape of our heart and soul He is faithful to tend them well.
1 Chronicles 28:9  “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.”

Friend, desires becoming demands is human nature, when the things we long for are good things as such it’s so easy to slip into frustration and self-righteousness.  It requires diligence and self-awareness to keep a check on the state of our hearts. To notice when we are holding tight to things we should lay down. To allow the Holy-Spirit to search us and convict us of any area that has imbalance or misalignment to the Father’s will for us. To trust the heart of our Good Father who loves us completely to lead and guide our days. To hold back the things that are not good for us and bring the blessings in season.

When we move out of alignment, we do damage to ourselves and others. But when we come in humility, surrender and honesty to the foot of the throne He hears our cry.

Friend, our God is quick to forgive, faithful to restore, ever redeeming and desires to pour out love and favour on those who trust His hand with their hearts. Who seek His face above all else and are willing to lay it all aside.

2 Chronicles 7:14 – If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

My prayer for you today is simple – that you, with complete honesty, and wholeheartedly, find yourself able to declare these words and own them as your own …

Psalm 27:8 – You have said, “Seek My face.” My heart says to You, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.

Be blessed 😊