Rule #2: Most times, when you're in extreme 'want.' It's a sign of a greater need.

Rule #2: Most times, when you're in extreme 'want.' It's a sign of a greater need. 
 
Just yesterday I posted on all the things I'm excited for. Now, while being excited for things is just fine and dandy, I was REALLY excited for these things. Like..." I'll be so happy, once I get x because then it'll fix y, which will thus make me feel better about myself in this area…." it sounds silly as I  type it out like this, but it’s true.

Yesterday, Ben bought me the camera I had been asking for. It’s an AMAZING little point and shoot that I really do love. I took it home, squealing with delight, and after playing with it for a few hours. I caught myself looking at pinterest, and other blogs and thinking ‘ooo, if I could only have z'.

And I caught myself. "Have I really become this? A girl who bases her joy and her anticipation on what she accumulates next?" The sad reality of these past few weeks, is yes. I’ll run through the whole alphabet of stuff and run through it again and find myself with these same empty feelings.

My first thoughts were to go through my house and look at all the great stuff I already have. The next was to go and look at all the stuff other people don’t have. And while this makes me sad and makes me appreciate what I already have, this also doesn’t fix the issue. See, I’ve done this exact thing before…and Its not just over stuff. It’s over my relationships, over my job, over so many parts of my life….I regularly find myself in this state of unnecessary want just a few months or dare I say weeks later after I go through a list of thankfulness….

I’m a huge fan of Ravi Zacharias. Today, I was listening to his podcasts and he said something quite profound. “The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced that which would give you the ultimate, and it has let you down. You can never find the ultimate without finding the sacred. Sacredness in ultimacy gives you the purpose for which you were created.”

That struck me.  A lot of the discontentment I have felt in my life, has not been because I am in want with the external around me. I am overwhelmingly blessed. It is because I am not going to the source for my joy and purpose, and rather am going to cheap knockoffs to tell me what I need. I wonder if I spent as much time seeking Identity from The One who created me, rather than so much time on sites,( or books, heck on watching friends around me)  how much differently I would view my wants and needs and my identity. Rather than looking at a fellow blogger, friend, or stranger and thinking “If I could only be like that!,” “ If only my relationship were like that,” “ If only my accomplishments could be like hers..” If I were to rather celebrate the uniqueness, as I celebrate mine and Glorify the God who created us and our relationships…I have a feeling this life would be far more fulfilling, in fact he promises that He came to give life, and life more abundantly (John 10:10)


 I hope that this little (or long…) post is just the start of me really going after Christ and putting my trust that he’s going to show up in all the ways he says he will. That I’ll learn true source for joy and purpose, Christ. It’s crazy that I’ve claimed  Christianity to be my source for so long and yet I rely so heavily on the statements by others about Jesus. I hope that this is the start of change. And that I will find that I want less and less of the things of this world and more and more of that awesome God who promises us so much more.

 “ No Eye has seen, No ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. “ 1^st Corinthians 2:9