It's funny how you can spend years wanting what is wrong while believing what you want is right. Well, it's not funny, if by chasing wrong dreams you end up in a place God never intended you to be.
That happened to me--and not just once, either. My dreams were to have more friends and to make the ones I had appreciate me more. I would lounge on my front porch on summer days with my nose behind a Victoria magazine appearing to be reading it. But to be honest, I was just waiting for the mailman to bring me letters from the friends I'd left back Out West. Problem was, I couldn't be honest. I couldn't admit that each note I received was like a message telling me I was ok. Accepted in the Friendship Realm. Valuable.
I had dreams to become well-known for either my writing or for being the best wife, mother, or friend (as if someone would hand me a gold plaque for those things). Sometimes I toyed with the idea of doing something Guiness Book of World Records worthy (like writing the most letters in a year). Or finding a way to make money so I'd have enough for the extras I thought I needed. Or being the best-dressed or the best-looking 35-year-old around.
You know...
But the thing was, each time I'd go after those dreams, it was as though God came along and frustrated each one. I'd get no letters, no extra money, no awards. Except that back then, I believed it was Satan who was the rain-maker on my parades, the ants at my picnics, the spoiler of all my plans. I thought he was the one who caused my dreams to die early deaths and never come to fruition.
Not.
No, eleven years later I realize it was good old God, Himself, who burned my dreams to ashes. Why would He do such a thing? Because my motivation was all wrong. I wanted to be the Best Whatever so that I would receive the praise of people. I wanted to look good in other peoples' eyes. I was seeking the approval of man and basing how I felt about myself according to the way people felt about me.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Like, don't do that.
As the song says, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Oh, they were never seedy, big-time-sinfully-obvious places. Most were even Christian places. But you can be off just a few degrees in Life and end up in a very sad land. A land where Selfish Ambition reigns and drags you around by the neck--somehow without you even realizing what's really happening. A place where you search fruitlessly for the kind of love you'll find only in Jesus.
Now I thank God that He did not give me what I thought I wanted. I didn't know it back then, but what I really, truly, deep-in-my-heart wanted was Him.
Just Him.
His love and acceptance and appreciation of me is the answer to all my dreams. I am important to Him so now I no longer careen around trying to become important to everyone else. And now Life has gone simple. I try to stay empty of what I want so that I can stay full of what He wants for me. And when I do that, all those good things spill out all over the place. I cannot contain such wonder.
They even spill out all over this blog, that is, when I'm careful to stay empty of me.
***
"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." Galations 1:10
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves." Philippians 2:3
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