Does God want to run my life? By Tony Stoltzfus - Coach22

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Instead of praying, "God, what do you love about me?" and experiencing his
loving response, we pray, "God, if you would just give me the wife you have for me, then
I will be happy." We substitute the created for the creator—an object we think will fill
our desires but never can—for the true love we can endlessly taste in relationship with
Jesus. To be really blunt, what we often pray is, "God, if you will give me this idol then I
will be filled by it and not you."
Letting Go to Be Filled
We can't fully experience desire fulfilled in God until we let go of the objects in
this world we've latched onto in his place. Allegiance to him is not about saying, “I am a
worm, God just give me your orders and I'll do them." It is a process of opening our
hearts to his spirit, allowing him to show us the hindrances to our relationship with him
(the idols), and then letting go of all those deeply rooted ways that we try to get our needs
met through people and things, and finding ways to tangibly meet them in relationship
with God.
Allegiance means making the fundamental choice that you will find your life and
your desire in Jesus—and the continually laying down of old ways of attaching your heart
to something that can never satisfy. John 12:24 says, “…unless a grain of wheat falls into
the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (NASU). Desire is
like that—until you let go of the object you've attached your desire to, you cannot
experience real life.
So, back to the original question: “If coaching (asking and not telling) really
works and God does what works—why would God ever tell us to do anything?” With the
insights gleaned from our study in James, we understand:
1. There is a mature way and immature way to get our desires met—He wants us to
“ask” for what we desire; not lust, covet and murder to obtain them.
2. The way to the place of greater maturity and freedom is surrender of the
unhealthy ways we’ve sought to fill our needs (ways that ultimately leave us
feeling empty).
3. Christian maturity is not robotic. God desires that we experience complete
freedom in our relationship with him, and will tell us what we need to let go of or
what we need to ask him for—if we are open to his direction.
As a coach, I want to help people identify and move out of the self-destructive
patterns (pleasures at war in their members) and find life. That is ultimately God’s
desire. So if he tells us to deal with an area in our lives, or let go of a destructive pattern,
he does so because he wants to see us fulfilled in him. But in the process he never
violates our identity or freedom of choice.
© Coach22, 2012 All Rights Reserved | www.Coach22.com | 530-247-1313 | Tony@Coach22.com