Why God Doesn’t Give Us Our Desires

“You must rest, O soul, to receive your heart’s desire.”
-Streams in the Desert

Sometimes, God doesn’t give us the things we want
because He knows the things we truly desire,
desires that we may not even be aware of
because we do not truly know ourselves.

We cannot truly know ourselves unless we really choose to,
and we cannot discover our true desires
unless we let go of the things we think we want,
things borne not out of love,
but out of fear, anger or other things
other than what our inner heart is yearning for.

Had God immediately given us our requests,
our joy wouldn’t have had a chance to be complete
because we would have settled for the “Second best”.

But God allows us instead these momentary frustrations
so that we can discover little by little
what it is we truly desire.