God Will Change Your Wants—If You Let Him

I go through periods where it is incredibly difficult to find time to pray. To simply be present with God. To listen. To talk. To have a real conversation. I admire people that have the discipline to do this. In fact, I'm jealous.

That said, I do pray. But most of the time it is when I am with people. It is at these times I feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit to say something. To ask God to join us in the time we are about to have together.

I call these situational prayers. 

Prayer to bless the food we are about to eat. Prayer to open a meeting. Prayer when visiting someone who is ill. Prayer when meeting with someone who needs help and I am clueless on how to help them. Prayer when a friend asks me to pray for them. 

But what I am missing is that consistent, one-on-one with God prayer. That meditative or, what I call, contemplative prayer where I am asking God into my life right now. Sitting quietly. Feeling his presence. Experiencing God. Being quiet for a long enough time to allow the Holy Spirit to bring forth ideas, suggestions, deep personal longings. 

To quietly appreciate my life and circumstances. To be grateful for my life. To be in awe of the greatness and wonder of God and his creation, including my wife, my kids, my grandchildren, my sister, my in-laws, my entrepreneurs, my friends, and me. 

To share my concerns and fears for the day. To ask God to lead and bless the meetings with the people I'll meet. To hear what God has to say about today. What he sees and what he wants me to think about. 

To worship him as God. To take the time to love him and experience his love.

Dave is a friend and someone who has this discipline. He prays. And he prays all the time. It is not like he did this all his life. He didn't. Then at a High Tech Prayer Breakfast, he was so moved by the speaker, he accepted the invitation from the MC to come to Jesus.

Something changed in Dave after being “born again.”  

I saw the change in behavior but didn't understand it. He went from someone who never prayed to someone who always prayed. He used to be like me. He had his morning routine, and it didn't start with prayer.

It went something like this.

Get his coffee. Sit down at his computer. Figure out his schedule and priorities for the day. Review his emails. Decide what he wanted from the day he was about to begin. Write down his to-do list. Prioritize it. Go!

I had to know how he changed his morning routine from this business best practice to prayer. So I asked him. And the answer he gave has stuck with me. I am still working through what to do with it because the answer has implications that reach into every area of my life. Areas that are well beyond morning prayer. 

He said, "God changed my want to."

"What? That's it!" I said

He went on, "I want to spend time with God. It isn't something that I have to do. I want to do it. It is what brings me joy and fulfillment. Yes. He changed my want to."

He got me thinking, and God took it from there.

I am also a believer in Jesus. I gave my life to him. He leads me and is in me. Paul says in the Book of Galatians 2:20, "My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

This conversation with Dave made me more sensitive to my want to’s. If I trust in Jesus, he gives me new desires. Not worldly desires. By default, I tend to want what everyone around me wants. But now I have new desires. New want to's. But I must be sensitive to these new want to's.

So now, when I find myself wanting to do something, I test it. Is this from God, or is this from me? In other words, am I being led by the Holy Spirit, or am I being led by me? It is hard for me to release my control of life.

I am good at focusing on the things I want. But God is active in my life, and I need to be sensitive to him and his leading. I need to quiet myself and let him speak. And this can only come through prayer. Through time with God. Otherwise, the default kicks in. Me.

Psalm 37:4 Trust in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

As Dave told me so simply, "He changed my want to."

Thanks, Dave. Life-changing wisdom for me.