What I Want Is Not What I Want

It's a really ordinary occurrence for people to want something more or less than they want something else.  It's also ordinary for those two priorities to be the reverse of what they should be.

It's called being human.
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To stay with God, or be like God (Gen 3:4-6).
To please God, or be better than others (Gen 4:8-9)
To have a God that is real, or to have a God you can touch (Ex 32:7-8)
To let Jesus be who He is, or to make Jesus who you want Him to be (Mt 16:21-23)
And so on, and so on, and so forth.
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It is a rather normal story.  People want something, but they want it to be a particular way.  So, they take what they want that actually exists and they distort it.  They go about it the wrong way.

They maim something that is essentially good by trying to make it more of what they want and less of what it is.

It's a perpetual sin of humanity.
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And I'm no less guilty of it than anyone else.  Over and over again, whether in relationships or friendships or jobs or opportunities or responsibilities or social events, I have tried to make something in my life into more of what I wanted it to be when it wasn't possible.

And I have done the same thing with God over and over again.
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There have been many many times in my life where I have sought rearranging my life to look more the way Jesus would want it to look.  I've wanted to care more about other people and less about myself.  I've wanted to have more discipline and spend time doing productive healthy things and less time being lethargic and lazy.  I've wanted...

The list goes on.  And some of those things I have succeeded at being better at, even if only mildly better.  But progress has been made in some respects.  And it other respects I have only succeeded in failing miserably more times than I thought possible.

Because it is hard to want what Jesus wants for us because it looks so freaking awful compared to what we want for us.
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That's what it comes down to isn't it?  We look at these two pictures painted for us of what our lives are supposed to look like.  We look at our painting of our lives.  And it isn't like Jesus isn't involved or influential in that painting.  He is in that painting because we are (at least a little) committed to Him.

But in that painting of our lives we are the artist.

We are the one making creative decisions and we are the one painting the settings and overall tone of the piece while Jesus stands beside us in front of the canvas making the occasional suggestion of color shade or hue.  We are in control, and boy oh boy do we love how that painting turns out every time.
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But that isn't how it works!  The fact is that what our soul's long for is to have the life that resembles the painting Christ paints of our lives.  We were created to live in that life, and so everything else, no matter how great we think it looks, will make us feel like we aren't where we are supposed to be.

We will have no peace.
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Christ is the artist of life, and He is the one who paints our story on the canvas as we stand next to Him making the occasional suggestion.  His painting will be a life that reflects His story because no one knows His story better than He does.

And His story transcends ours.
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We are where we are because Christ has brought us or allowed us to get this far.  But so much of what we experience will be unsatisfying and frustrating and painful if we should try to change our lives from what they are meant to be into what we would rather have them be.

Because at the end of the day we aren't aware of what it is that we really want.
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"To praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

- St. Augustine
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Peace.