God's Perfect and Pleasing Plan

As I was chatting with friends last night, I came to the realization that even though I am going through what I see as "a lot," even though this life is difficult, even though this is NOT where I thought I would be at 25...I am overjoyed to go through it for Christ!  This short time of suffering is a blessing.  And each and every "turn for the worse" is perfect and pleasing because it is God's will!

"Therefore since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God's throne."  Hebrews 12:1-2

 Sometimes we forget that Jesus is the "source and perfecter."  Nothing in us comes from what we may have...ALL things are from Jesus and made perfect BY Him!  This means our desires too.  The bible tells us that God will give us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 20:4, 37:4)... but, the bible also tells us that our hearts are prone to evil and sin (John 8:43-45).  Romans 7 reminds us that because we are born into sin we do the things we hate rather than doing the things we know are right.
I used to think that all my desires came from God...then I would get mad at God for not fulfilling the desires He gave me.  The thing I didn't realize was that the unfulfilled desires were either premature (and might be fulfilled later - that is, in God's timing) or they were not from God (they were from Satan).  The beautiful thing is that God will help us to see the difference!  As we grow deeper in our faith and in the word, as we grow closer to God, He begins to change our heart. I'll never get over that...Jesus CHANGES my heart!!!!  As our heart changes, so do our desires!  Did you catch that...Jesus not only changes our hearts He changes our desires...  As we are made to be more like Jesus, we beging to think, act, worship, and desire more like Jesus!!!
This is not an easy task, however.  We are called to suffer through this Christian life (1 Peter 2:21, 5:10) until we are captured up into Glory with the Father.  But, as Paul tells us, this suffering breings the greatest joy of all!