Psalm 37:4
Delight
yourself in the Lord
and he will give
you the desires of your heart.
“St.
Ambrose and St. Augustine did not want to be overworked and worried bishops.
Nothing was farther from their intention. St. Cuthbert wanted the solitude and
freedom of his heritage on the Farne; but he did not often get there. St.
Francis Xavier’s preference was for an orderly life close to his beloved
master, St. Ignatius. At a few hours’ notice he was sent out to be the Apostle
of the Indies and never returned to Europe again. Henry Martyn, the fragile and
exquisite scholar, was compelled to sacrifice the intellectual life to which he
was so perfectly fitted for the missionary life to which he felt decisively
called. In all these, a power beyond themselves decided the direction of life.”
(Evelyn Underhill)
Upon
reading this, one could get the distinct impression that God’s will is to
ignore a person’s natural talents and desires and to lead people into avenues
of service for which they are unsuited. Instead of sounding like a loving
father, that sounds like a twisted control freak who likes to make others uncomfortable.
When I
was in high school, I took a mission trip to Haiti. It was on that trip that I
felt the call of God on my heart to go into full-time ministry. On that trip I
met a couple who felt that God’s highest calling for every Christian was to be
a foreign missionary. He was a dentist and they worked together at a mission
hospital. The one thing that this dentist hated more than anything else was
pulling teeth. Yet, the majority of what he did, day in and day out, was pull
teeth. That couple lasted one term; returning home with a feeling of failure.
Was it really God’s will that he should spend his time doing the very thing he
hated the most?
When I
was a boy, I too had the feeling that the highest calling for a Christian is to
be a foreign missionary. With that thought firmly planted in my mind, I set my
life’s course to that end. From that trip to Haiti until my first year in
seminary, I diligently pursued my goal to be a missionary. Then God stepped in
and changed the course of my life. He showed me, in a dramatic way, that I did
not have the skills needed to be the missionary that I thought He wanted me to
be. Instead, He began to show me that He had given me certain desires and
talents, which I had subdued, that He wanted to use for His glory. Once I was willing
to embrace the talents that God had endowed me with, I began to see how God had
been directing me all along.
The
Christian life definitely requires that we sacrifice some of our wishes and
desires. Jesus said that we had to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and
follow Him. He also called us to seek first the kingdom of God. But neither of
those commands tell us to negate the way that God made us. God has given each
of us certain gifts, talents, and abilities that He wants to use for His
Kingdom and His glory. When these are properly viewed as tools in God’s hands
and not ends in themselves, they become powerful motivators for action.
David
said that if we will delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires
of our heart. When we align our heart with the heart of God, our desires become
sign posts to God’s leading and directing. God's will is not that we would all abandon our current lives and become foreign missionaries. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians
12:17-18, If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing
be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in
fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he
wanted them to be.
God
does not call all of us to leave what we know and go to some far-flung place to
spend our life in service there. No, God has placed each of us where He wants us
to serve. He has given us talents and even desires that He wants us to use right
where we are. There will be sacrifice along the way, that is for sure. But
there will also be the delight of doing the things we were created to do.
God is
not asking us to give up everything that makes us happy and comfortable to live
lives in uncomfortable situations. What He is asking of us is that we submit
all of our talents, gifts, and desires to Him for His use. To use our talents
for God’s glory is an amazing experience of joy and delight, even if there is
some sacrifice along the way. Who has God created you to be? Be that person to
the fullest of your ability.
Colossians 3:17
And whatever
you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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