Trusting God With What You Want

Bringing a spiritual perspective to world events and daily life.

Someone once told me that if you have a strong desire for something good, such as a home, job, family, or companionship, it is best to raise it up and put it on the "altar" of God -- divine Love; then to let go and let the flames of love burn around it. I was told further that Love purifies our desires by burning off the dross, or impurity. And what we get back is pure gold.

I understood this to mean that we must turn to God with our innermost longings and trust Him to bless them. I found that when you have taken a step back mentally -- that is, let go -- God does take over. The longing for whatever you desire is purified. And the result is that you receive what is most right for you -- probably something far better than you originally hoped for.

The Bible puts it this way: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths" (Proverbs 3:5, 6). Even if we pray to God sincerely for something, it is not always in our best interests to receive exactly what we ask for. God, who is also the divine Mind, knows all needs, and God is not able to give us something that's not right for us.

It's often hard to let go of what you think you want. We all think we know what is best for us. But God knows better than we do. The fact is, all we need to give up is our own incorrect sense of what is right, as opposed to anything that is truly good. And once we have placed our desires with God, it's legitimate to expect good to appear in life in a way that is tailor-made for us.

Of course, this takes trust. We seem always to want to know what the outcome will be before we let go of outlining our wants. When we trust our desires to God, we are letting them be transformed in accord with the divine nature. This is yielding up selfishness of one sort or another, giving up "what I want" for "what God wants for me." It is leaving things in His hands. Mary Baker Eddy discovered Christian Science (the divine Science found in the teachings of Christ Jesus). She wrote of trusting God in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures -- in the very first chapter. This chapter, entitled "Prayer," says: "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds" (p. 1). That's not too complicated, is it?

The Bible abounds with examples of people who placed their trust in God, giving up their personal desires for the influence of divine will. Take Moses' mother, Jochebed (see her story in Exodus 2:1-10). Forced to hide her baby from the persecution of the Egyptian Pharaoh, who had ordered every Hebrew boy child killed, Jochebed was led to make a simple vessel of bulrushes and to place her child inside.

It might have appeared to an onlooker that she was just abandoning her baby. But the Bible makes clear that a divine plan was unfolding to her. Jochebed had let go of her own will enough to trust God's message regarding her baby. This allowed His guidance to be brought to the situation and to govern it for the good of all. Moses was soon found by the Pharaoh's daughter, who was bathing in the river. She adopted him and brought him up as a prince of Egypt. And Moses' mother was almost immediately reunited with her child, as she was called upon to be his nurse. Moses went on to lead his people out of Egyptian bondage.

Science and Health says on page 302, "It is impossible that man should lose aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his." When we trust all to God, our purified desires result in gain, not loss. This trust is really the highest form of intelligence, for God's love will lead us in all the right ways; into channels where human intellect and learning sit at the feet of the source of intelligence -- the divine Mind that knows all.

There is nothing to fear when you place your desires in God's hands.