Such and Such

Have you ever looked at your life and thought ‘God has been good to me.’ You think of the things that He’s blessed you with and the things that He protected you from. You think of the situations that have occurred in other’s lives that somehow you avoided—not by any goodness of your own just by His grace and mercy. He has filled that God-shaped void in your life and You are fully aware that He’s been wonderfully good to you. Still somewhere in your heart, there is a desire for one thing—just one thing that hasn’t been fulfilled. And it seems that one thing is the thing that’s more important than all the others.

For both Hannah and Rachel, it was a baby. Jacob was so intent on having an inheritance and a birthright that he stole it from his brother. Caleb cried out in tenacious anguish “Give me my mountain!” David finally comes into his kingdom and conquers all of his enemies but in that moment of peace, he realized that his heart was at unrest. It was at that point that he made his greatest error. We don’t know what was missing in his heart, we only know that he was not satisfied. The most fascinating part of this story was when Nathan, the prophet, voiced God’s heart on the matter. After describing in detail all that He had given David, God said:

“…and if [that had been] too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.”

Unfortunately, we as Christians have been taught that desire equals lust. And dissatisfaction is a mask for ungratefulness. So, when faced with desires, we harbor them in secret, silence until they become lusts or we try to fulfill them in ungodly ways. Eventually like James writes, we are drawn away with them and fall into sin.

But Psalm 84:11 says that our God will not withhold any good thing from those that walk upright. But God said “Such and such”. In other words, you fill in the blank. The implication is that if you would have told me, cried out to me, said to me that you were not satisfied I would have given you the desire of your heart. Its very likely that whatever that desire is, like Rachel’s and Hannah’s and Caleb’s, God put it there in the first place!

He’s asking the same question to us today ‘What would satisfy your soul?’. Don’t hide it. Cry out to Him—place it in His hand and His timing. If you allow Him to fill the void, He will allow you to fill in the blank.