Keeping The "I Wants" In Check

Do you ever get a case of the "I wants"?  I sure do!  Because I'm human and sinful.  Today as I was driving alone I had some time to hear myself think and it was good for me.  I started thinking about some books and magazine articles I've recently read and how it would be good if I let them really impact my life.

Last Christmas I received a book called Becoming More Than A Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa TerKeurst, and with plenty of time on my hands to do something quietly while nursing Caleb, I dove right in and am thankful for the gift of that book.  Probably the biggest thing that has stuck with me is when Lysa talks about how we can get so wrapped up in wanting something(s) in someone else's life - or wanting their life altogether.

BUT, that's not how God planned it.  He planned your life and mine just exactly as He pefectly knew would be best for us.  Sometimes it is hard to remember and accept that in the moment, but it is true.  I admit that there are times that I see something going on for someone else and I think "gosh, I wish I could have/do/see that".

Some friends get to live very close to their families; I live 8ish hours, at the closest, from mine.  Some friends just purchased a fun, new vehicle; we own one vehicle that doesn't hold much more than the 4 of us.  Some friends live in cute neighborhoods with fancy houses; I live on a busy scenic highway in a house where you don't have to shout to be heard from one end to the other.  Some friends got to travel as they pleased before having kids; we were in the thick of graduate school and not yet married for 3 years when our first came.

BUT (again) I am VERY thankful for the way God has planned my life.  I'm glad to get to live in the same country as my family.  I'm thankful that the one vehicle we do own is reliable and paid for.  I'm thankful for a house to live in at all and that because it is next door to where Chuck works, that helps us to not have to purchase another vehicle.  I'm thankful for even getting to have children and that everything about getting them here was easier than I ever dreamed it would be.

It's easy to get caught up in wanting things from someone else's life, but we're only looking in from the outside.  For all the good that we see, or think we see, many times we don't see the bad that accompanies it.  God equipped us to handle our good and our bad, not someone else's good and bad.  Maybe we think we can handle their good, but God didn't equip us to handle it.

This will be a struggle to some degree for all of us as we are still here, waiting for the Savior's return.  And in the midst of that waiting, I'm going to do my best and pray for God to help me to be patient and ask that He remind me daily of how He has taken care of me and that His ways are best.

p.s. - I hope this didn't come off as complainy, I was just trying to be honest about a few of the things that I personally struggle with at times.  :)