This is the one where I tell you I have been dead in my coveting and jealousy and selfish ambitions.
This is the one where I'm hoping the confession will lead to a breakthrough.
This is the one where I tell you what I'm teaching my oh-so-struggling six year old and, through teaching him, the Lord is teaching me.
James 4:1-8
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
I've watched my six year old battle some fierce anger and self-righteousness these past two weeks. It finally came to a head today, when, in two separate instances, he physically hurt people because he had selfish desires that weren't being met.
I've been battling some fierce anger and self-righteousness these past two weeks as the selfish desires I've had have gone unmet. It results in me withdrawing and not communicating.
I keep getting my worship wrong. I keep falling into the trap of thinking if all these things would just happen, if all these things would fall into place, then I would have more of the LORD.
And He mercifully reminds me that first I must seek His kingdom. Seeking my own leads to destruction. As I very well know and have all ready walked in.
I call it spiritual amnesia. How quickly I am to forget the goodness He has all ready done. How quickly I am to forget His delight in me. How quickly I am to forget that He has all ready shown His ultimate act of love in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.
I told my blue-eyed boy we were both struggling, at the core of it, with the same thing - self-love and worship gone backwards which is not worship at all - but it was just manifesting itself differently in each of us.
The Lord led me, through Paul David Tripp's oh-so-convicting book, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, to bow in a time of prayer yesterday and give thanks for this season. Heart open and humbled, grateful that I have a Father who loves me enough to say no. A Father that loves me enough to not give me over to the lusts of my heart. A Father who loves me enough to not let me wander too far, just enough to see that the grass I thought was so green on the other side is only carefully tended weeds and thorns.
So how do I rewire my heart? By his grace, because it is unending and bountiful. I look to Him, confess to Him, repent, and give thanks in all circumstances.
I turn my worship to Him through learning, meditation and song. Over and over, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, I lift my voice to Him knowing He is faithful to finish this work He started in me.
As I go though the rest of this day, teaching and rebuking my son, I'll take the words I give to him and hide them deep in my heart. Because we are not so different, him and I. Both sinners. Both in desperate need of heart change, not circumstance change. Both with hope so very near.
"If a certain set of desires rules my heart, I will not want God to be a wise, loving, sovereign Father who gives me what he knows is best. Instead, I will want a divine waiter who delivers what I have set my heart on...He knows what is best, and he will not let there be peace until he alone controls our hearts. He is a Warrior King, who will not rest when we are captive to other kings. He fights for us, for the thoughts and desires of our hearts... Thank him for that!"
- Paul David Tripp
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