He Makes Me Want To

"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

God's will for my life has not been revealed all at once as some grand plan but has come about through the shaping of my character and desires and the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

A few years ago I felt restless and bored with my job in student development at Booth College and wanted to try something new. Somehow I got the idea to get involved with Youth with a Mission (YWAM). I had some idea of that organization but not a lot. I don't even remember how I latched onto them in 2008 but I did. I wanted to go to a spanish speaking country as I had an interest in that language so I was all set to apply to a base in Columbia.

Then one night I went to the lounge where some students were watching a movie called "Bride & Prejudice". It's a bollywood-esque version of Jane Austen's famous book and I was so taken with the colours! It's a riot of song and dance and sumptuous Indian clothes. I had never before had an interest in going to India but after that night I wanted very much to go there. All my interest in going to Latin America evaporated, I applied to a base on the sub-continent and I ended up spending five months in that country.

I suppose a skeptic could understandably say that I just did what I wanted and they would be right. I went to India because I wanted to go there. But that is the beauty of God. He's brilliant actually. The easiest way to get people to do what you want is to make them want to do it too.

As a younng person I had this nasty idea that God didn't care about my happiness and that if I agreed to follow Him fully He would tell me to do things that I didn't want to do. But as I have spent time with Him, in prayer and in Bible reading and in worship, I have discovered that as I have delighted in Him, He has literally given me the desires of my heart. I didn't know that He wanted me in India so He gave me the desire to go there and then it was no problem for me to head off in that direction.

It is so cool for me to discover that God cares about my happiness and that He is working out His will in my life in ways that please me even though I don't always understand them at the time.