I had a dream the other night. And when I woke up in the morning I felt sad. In the dream I was happy because what I wanted was happening. But then I woke up and it’s not true, it’s not happening. And while I wasn’t angry with God when I woke up, it made me still ask him, “Why did you let that happen? Why give me that desire if you don’t want that for me?”

Desires are a funny thing.

A desire (noun) is : a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.

To desire (verb) means: “strongly wish for or want (something).”

I think one of the hardest passages to understand in the Bible for me is Psalm 37:4: “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

I’ve read/listened to many explanations of that verse and almost all of them agree that if you trust in the Lord and leave it up to him, he will then direct you to what he wants instead of what you want. And I do believe that is true. I believe that God will eventually turn you around towards his path vs what you wanted and then you’ll look back and realize He was right all along and knew better than you did.

But then why do we still want things? If something is not meant for us and IF it’s not in God’s plan for us (whether right now or ever) why do those feelings still linger? Even after lots of prayer and turning it over to God? Are we being tested? Is the enemy trying to see if he can make us get tempted so that we’ll go against what God wants and sin by coveting what we shouldn’t have? But how do we know if we’re not even supposed to have it?

I don’t know if any of you ever have had experience with addiction in your life (whether yours or someone else) but the road to recovery is a hard one. Just because you think you can easily give up something doesn’t mean someone else is weak just because they can’t do it that fast. Then there’s always the chance they can relapse even after years of being sober because just one thing triggers that desire again.

Not to say that all desires are like addictions but sometimes it can feel like that. You try to push away that desire, you’ve let it go and you’ve turned it over to God, you live your life hopefully the way He wants, but then one little memory can trigger back all those emotions all over again.

I still haven’t figured this out. All I can do is just keep praying. This is definitely one of the questions I’m going to be asking God when I get to heaven. (Yes I have a list. And yes I will probably forget them all when it actually happens).