CENSORING OUR DESIRES IN THE WILL OF GOD
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him.
1 John 5:14-15
The word wish in its modern sense has little or no place in the Christian's vocabulary. The word occurs rarely in the Bible, and when it does it seldom means more than to will or desire. It is hard to conceive of anything more completely futile than wishing. It is significant that wishing is done mostly by children and superstitious people. However sweet and innocent it may appear to see a child going through his little ritual of wishing, it can become something far from harmless when carried over into adult life. And even the child should be taught very early that wishing gets him nowhere.
The evil of the empty wish lies in the fact that the wisher is not adjusted to the will of God. He allows his desires to play over things that are entirely out of God's will for him and dreams of possessing what he well knows he should not have. Five minutes of this futile dreaming and he has lost the fine edge off his spiritual life. Should the act ripen into a habit, his Christian life may be seriously injured.
The man soon comes to substitute mere longing for hard work, and unless he corrects his fault sharply, he will degenerate into a spineless dreamer of empty dreams. Every desire should be brought to the test of God's will. If the desire is out of the will of God, it should be instantly dismissed as unworthy of us.
To continue to long for something that is plainly out of the will of God for us is to prove how unreal our consecration actually is.
Thought
God invites us to petition Him boldly, assuring us that He hears us and will grant our requests. However, those petitions are to accord with His will. In some areas His will is crystal clear; in others somewhat unclear. Are our prayers according to His w
Prayer
Lord, I'm sometimes guilty of asking what I know is not Your will for me. Forgive me. Your will be done in my life as it is in heaven!
https://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=476