How to Get What You Want
Written by Ed Allen
Saturday, 06 May 2000 19:00
Lessons From The Life of David
This place would be full if people really thought I could tell them how to get what they wanted. We can! We know! The problem is not knowing what to do to get what we want. The problem is doing it consistently and confidently.
Perhaps that great internationally known theologian Mick Jagger was right. "You can't always get what you want." But really you and I refuse to believe him. We live with the stubborn belief that we can get what we want and not only so but we deserve it. It's surprising but if you think about it the Bible disagrees with Jagger, at least partly. According to the Bible, you can't always get what you think you want, but you can get what you really want.
So how do we get it? How do we get what we want?
- Get to know the right people.
- Work hard.
- Work real hard.
- Make a lot of money.
- Learn the right process.
- Learn the right politics.
Young people listen up. I'm going to give away the punch line to this lesson right up front: WAIT ON GOD
Chronology
- Exodus - 1300 B.C.
- Joshua - 1250 B.C.
- Judges - Through 1100 B.C.
- Birth of Samuel - Around 1100 B.C.
- Saul - Died approximately 1010 B.C.
- 1 Samuel 8 - Israel asks for a king.
- 1 Sam 9 - Samuel anoints Saul king
- 1 Sam 13:7-14 - Saul gets impatient. God rejects Saul.
- 1 Sam 16 - Samuel anoints David
How to wait on the Lord:
- Take your longings to God
- Don't deny them (Psalm 38:9)
- Don't cover them up (Psalm 139:23)
- Don't let them turn into demands
- Live obediently
- Don't live with resignation. (Oh well, nothing I can do.)
- Don't live in withdrawal. (Forget you.)
- Don't live in rebellion.
Not long before his death Father Henri Nouwen wrote a book called Sabbatical Journeys. He writes about some of his friends who were trapeze artists called the Flying Roudellas.
They told Nouwen there's a special relationship between the flyer and the catcher on the trapeze. The flyer is the one that lets go and the catcher is the one that catches. As the flyer swings high above the crowd on the trapeze the moment comes when she must let go. She arcs out into the air in an act of abandon. Her job is to remain as still as possible and wait for the strong hands of the catcher to pluck her from the air.
One of them told Father Nouwen, "The flyer must never try to catch the catcher." The flyer must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch her, but she must wait.