Psalms 106: 14 In the wilderness their desires ran wild, testing God’s patience in that dry wasteland. 15  So he gave them what they asked for, but he sent a plague along with it.

I admit that in the wilderness my desires run wild.... 

sometimes it feels like when we do the right thing for a long time that we start to feel we deserve more or better or even just different..

I find this to be true in life with doing right financially.. sexually.. even in my eating habits... after I do the right thing for a long time I imagine if I give in and just satisfy these crazy desires for a little while... then I will be 'better' than right now... and the truth is that I never am... if I look at it from my finances.. it just sets me back a little more from the goal... if I were to do it in my sexual purity I am sure at this point that I would be horrified after the fact... and even with eating.. if I eat the wrong things for a few days in a row I start to feel sluggish and just icky.... 

I wondered about God sending them a plague to go along with what they really thought they wanted... and I know that I do NOT want anything so badly that I am willing to risk a plague to go along with it... and yet here we are.. time after time we fall short and do the wrong thing make the wrong choice and have to start again... 

the good news is... that even though we are so much like the israelites and we fall time and again... God is always willing to help us back up.. there is none like Him... and I am so thankful for His mercy and grace and love... 

Psalms 106: 12 Then they believed his promises and sang his praise. 13 But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold. 

14  In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test. 15  So he gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease among them. 16  In the camp they grew envious of Moses and of Aaron, who was consecrated to the Lord. 17  The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan; it buried the company of Abiram. 18  Fire blazed among their followers; a flame consumed the wicked. 19  At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped an idol cast from metal. 20  They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull, which eats grass. 21  They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, 22  miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. 23  So he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them. 24  Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe his promise.

dear God... please let me never cease in waiting for YOUR plan to unfold... let me not give in to my own desires but instead be steadfast and unmoveable.. seeking only Your will.. amen.

often I do not hear God say yes or this is right.. but I ALWAYS hear when something is a no.. I need to be sure to avoid the NO's of this life.. and wait on God for His YES... 

that is my heart's desire... above what I think I like... 

so I was reading a devotional just now and it was saying the bible is always warning us not to allow a door open to the enemy... then it said anxiety and anger are open doors...

I thought about this.. you know normally I don't worry too much about too much... lately I have been anxious about finances... I need to get some things caught up... and for some reason it is making me anxious... where previously it wouldn't have.. and I have prayed several times over and given it to God and yet.. if I allow myself to think about it.. then I again become anxious.. 

I have had anger in the past to become an open door to the enemy... it is amazing how he can seep in and we never even realized it.. he causes us to have negative thoughts when we are striving for peace and positive thoughts... 

Ecclesiastes 1: 16 I said to myself, “Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.” 17 So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind. 18 The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief.  To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.

I was reading this and wondering why he felt it increased his sorrow to gain knowledge.. 

I wonder if it is because when he gained knowledge.. it was not knowledge of God.. but instead knowledge of man and of the world's ways... 

any time our focus comes off of the greatness of God.. and is set on what we deal with or what we don't have.. then we become depressed or we become miserable...

if we are gaining knowledge of God.. knowledge of who He is.. what His character is... we are just getting better.. not sorrowful... if we spend our time in learning of God.. He makes us more like Him.. reading the word of God.. knowing His ways.. these things have brought me joy that no one can take from me... they have given me true life.. life that is not based on this body or this world.. life in my spirit and my soul...  

my own experience is this world will make us unhappy.. the only thing that can truly make us happy is to live our lives for God rather than man... to live to please Him... 

the older solomon got.. the more he became like this world.. he slowly became less like God and more like his surroundings... and as he got older he became more and more miserable.. in my own life.. the older I have gotten.. the more of myself I have given over to God and the happier I have become.. I am happier today than I have ever been before in my life... I believe this is all due to God... 

we will never make people happy no matter what we do.. but God is already pleased with you.. God already loves you.. even when you are all jacked up... so why do we care what people think to begin with... wake up each day determined to live to please the God who already loves you rather than the people working on loving you... 

Isaiah 53: 2  My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3  He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4  Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5  But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6  All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. 7  He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8  Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. 10  But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief.

I don't often read about or even think about what Jesus life was really like... 

instead I think about how great He was... about the miracles.. about the crowds following Him and loving Him... and about Him bringing salvation to the world... 

I don't often recognize that His entire life was given for me.. I have often looked at it as though it was only the last few months of His life that He was mistreated and unloved... but I wonder.. was it His entire life? was He rejected and abused and treated badly throughout His life for me? 

He gave up all dreams and desires that He had so that I could be saved.. when I read that He died with no descendants... I was struck... He chose to give up the idea of love and family that I might be saved this 2,000+ years later... now that is really a living sacrifice... 

what is it God is calling you to sacrifice for His glory and His plan so that you too can be used to save lives? and are you willing to give up what you want and desire to acheive His plan above your own?

Job 42: 7 After the Lord had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. 8 So take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did as the Lord commanded them, and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer. 10 When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before! 

12 So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning. For now he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 teams of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. 13 He also gave Job seven more sons and three more daughters.

all throughout Job's trial and troubles the so called friends told him he has to have sinned.. that he had to have made God mad.. that God isn't going to just strip someone of everything if they were not in the wrong... while Job kept saying that he didn't know why God was putting him through this, he also said that he was not living in sin... the friends continued to be determined that he was... 

we see in this scripture in v10 that when Job prayed for those who kept condemning him.. that is when he was restored... 

it is hard to pray for those who talk badly about you.. those who refuse to see the good in you.. those who say they are our friends but show us something else.. yet that is what restored him... 

I wonder how often we withhold the good God would do for us because we refuse to pray for those who do us wrong... I find that in praying for those who are against me, that is where I see some type of good in them.. that is when I am able to let go of what they have done to me and give them to God and pray He will be good to them... 

I am not talking about scripture this morning.. more about life's lessons and circumstances... 

in my sleep last night I hear this question: if you could go back and start over.. what would you change? what point would you restart from?

my first thought is the abusive ex... but if I restarted without that.. I would not have my kids.. so I determine I wouldn't redo that...

next thought would be the man I loved that committed suicide.. but that was used to help soften me I believe.. to get me to begin to overcome the hard heart I had developed.. so I wouldn't redo that... 

if I could restart from any point.. it would be about 6yrs ago when I allowed someone to be too close to me... I would have handled that situation completely differently.. but again.. I have changed tremendously in the last 7yrs so even though it was a negative.. it was also used for the good... 

so in thinking about all this... what I really learn is that I recognize that even when situations are bad or hard.. I can trust God to work them out in a way that makes me a better person.. and all of the situations have worked in a way that has made me who I am.. and I don't want to return to the bitter and angry woman that I was previously... 

so I am very thankful for all that I have gone through.. much of it my own fault... be even if not.. still I am thankful for the outcome and who I now have become..