I’ve loved to write ever since I was young, and over the years, I’ve collected a lot of journals. From random thoughts and ideas to devotionals, prayers, and church notes, my journals house them all.

Every so often, I look through my old journals to see how God has answered prayers and how I’ve grown. While reading one of my journals recently, something I’d written caught my eye:

“Our desires lead us nowhere.”

A short but impactful truth.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having desires or dreams, but they must be in alignment with God’s will.

And when it comes to our desires leading us nowhere, I think of video games.

For the few video games I played growing up, I recall times when my character would get stuck in the corner while walking. They were walking face first into a corner, and they couldn’t go anywhere.

I’d try using the controller to move my character out of the corner, but nothing I did worked. Even making my character speed up didn’t help. Because even though my character was running now, they were running face first into the corner. So they still weren’t going anywhere.

And, sis, that’s the visual I get when we try pursuing our goals and desires without including God in the process. We’re doing a lot of moving, but we’re not progressing anywhere. And it doesn’t matter if we try moving faster, our desires still aren’t leading us anywhere.

But as soon as we let God take control of our lives, we end up on the right path because we’re in His will.

The thing is, the right path isn’t always the easier path.

Being on the right path – in God’s will – requires sacrifice, dying to self, and it’s often the unpopular route.

But God’s route is better.

There’s been too many times where I’ve made a mess out of my life trying to do things my way. And I had to learn the hard way that doing things on my own won’t get me anywhere.

So I constantly have to ask God to search my heart – to reveal anything in me that offends Him and anything I’m pursuing that He hasn’t approved of.

Because even though we say that God will give us the desires of our heart, quoting Psalm 37:4, we often leave out the beginning part of that verse:

“Delight yourselves in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

As we delight ourselves in the Lord –

• Reading His word
• Praying
• Fasting
• Staying connected to our local church
• Serving
• & Staying connected to Godly community

We’ll be able to shift our focus and start looking at things through a spiritual lens. And over time, our questions become: “God, what do You want for my life? Is this something that You want me pursuing? If not, help me to separate myself from it so I’m not exerting energy on something You don’t want me spending time on.”

So, sis, I just want to encourage us to let God take control of our lives and to surrender our plans for His will.

If there’s anything that God wants us to let go of, lay it at the feet of Jesus – knowing that when we do, we’ll always get something better in return because Jesus and what He offers gives us the true fulfilment and satisfaction we desire.

Pause & Reflect

1. In what area of your life do you need to let God take control?