I knew I needed to face it. Face that I needed to clean out at least two of the shelves in my refrigerator. I have never been good at keeping an organized refrigerator! I will own up to it! I always plan for it to be different. A clean refrigerator makes me want to always have it that way. “I will be so careful and not allow anything to ever spill!” I will put covers on everything!” “I will put things in my refrigerator in an organized plan!” “I will never forget about what I put in to use later and then never use, until later I can’t figure out what it was!” All of those “I will’s” are my resolutions when I have a clean refrigerator. Cleaning the refrigerator is definitely one of my big procrastinate doing problems. Sometime ago after I hadn’t been able to keep up with daily duties because of some surgeries, I was given a gift of a clean refrigerator. I have to confess the gift did not make me happy while it was happening. I was stewing about the process. I couldn’t control what was happening. My faults and sins were being discovered! They were taken out, looked at, then many items were deemed only worthy of trash or compost. I wasn’t allowed to even see what was being thrown away. Finally, the spoiled was gone, the containers washed, the shelves taken out and cleaned and what was left was organized. I should have been happy. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy! My secrets in the back corners had been found. The things that I was procrastinating about taking care of were now gone. All I could think about was the things that I hadn’t wanted to face and now someone else had done what I should have done long before. In the end, I was very happy with the new start! I really appreciated the good deed done for me.
The refrigerator and my procrastination are a symbol of me and God. God comes in and shows me my procrastinations. He comes and offers to clean me up. But I protest! I want to do it myself. But then I don’t seem to get around to doing it and then the troubles begin to mount. God has promised to take the spoiled and rotten away, if I let Him. But there seems to be a few things that I have pushed back unseen to me but never unseen by God. I don’t want to face them. I don’t want anyone to see or touch them. But God sees! He wants to clean them out for me. I just need to let Him do it.
Sometime ago, I longed to have something that I saw others have. All I could think of was how much better my refrigerator life would be if I could just have one. The thing that I wanted most of all was a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer. I was convinced that my life would be so much better with one. I saw them in other people’s homes. I wasn’t coveting, though I was perhaps a bit envious. I had tried freezer below, freezer above and truly thought having both freezer and refrigerator at the same levels would be perfect! I was so wrong. I finally had my dreams/wishes come true! I had one! It was so clean and just exactly what I wanted. I knew that I could keep it spotless and never lose some forgotten leftover small dish. I could see everything and things in the freezer section were all visible. Soon, something spilled. And I filled the freezer too full and things slid out. Things could still get lost in the refrigerator and things could still not be recognizable in my new “just what I wanted refrigerator.” The lesson I should learn—just because I think something is good and right for me, in the big picture my wishes are not my needs. This week once again, I had to spend time cleaning part of my refrigerator. I had to investigate the top shelf where I sometimes put things that are odd shaped and don’t fit well on other shelves. Over time, there were things on the bottom of that top shelf with other odd things on top. You probably guessed right—I found things that should have been found sooner! Often, I put things on the top shelf to make room on the middle shelves for large dishes and cake pans. Because my side-by-side appliance that I thought would make my life so much easier has actually made my life much harder than I could possibly have imagined. Large items don’t fit!!
Now, again I am hoping for another change and that this time I will have considered all the aspects and take the time to consider all the good and bad and learn what will be best for me. I want to take what God provides and not what I think I want. Getting what you thought you wanted, only to realize it often brings no lasting satisfaction, is a humbling lesson in trusting God’s perspective over human desires. True contentment comes when desires match and align with God’s will rather than fleeting feelings. What we want is often not what we actually need, and sometimes God uses disappointments to redirect us. When God says “no” or “not yet,” it is often because He can see the weight that the “want” will place on us. What seems like a blessing may actually be a burden, and He spares us from the cost of choosing outside His will. When you realize you don’t like what you once craved, God offers grace to guide you through the disappointment. I should use this moment to surrender that desire to Him, placing my trust in His better plan rather than my fleeting feelings. The void of want and unhappiness you feel cannot be filled by the thing you wanted; it can only be filled by God. The temporary discomfort of not getting your way—or getting it and seeing it fail—is often a redirection to pull you closer to Him. What is a “want” that I have pursued, that I need to surrender, trusting that God’s “no” is actually his protection? One answer—my refrigerator. Giving wants to God is such a hard lesson to learn and experience. Lord, thank You for Your patience when I pursue things that cannot satisfy. I confess I often chase and dwell on desires that lead me away from You. I release my specific “desire” into Your hands, trusting that Your plan for my life is better than my own. Help me to find true contentment in You alone. Amen.
I thought I wanted something, then I got it. Now I don’t like it! It is common for everyone to experience chasing a “desire mirage” only to find that the reality doesn’t match the dream. In a spiritual way, this cycle often reveals the difference between our temporary desires and our eternal needs. We often mistake a symptom for a solution.
We think a new job will cure our anxiety, or a new relationship will cure our loneliness, a different refrigerator will fix my overcrowding. When we get the thing, but the feeling remains, it is an invitation to look deeper at the real problems.
The Deception of “If-Only”: We live in a state of “I will be happy if only X happens.”
The Arrival Fallacy: The psychological trap of believing that reaching a goal creates lasting happiness.
The God-Shaped Vacuum: As Blaise Pascal suggested, there is a void in us that finite things cannot fill. (a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher)
In Numbers 11, the Israelites craved meat instead of nothing but manna, remembering Egypt with rose-colored glasses. God gave them quail until the spoiled meat smell “came into their nostrils.” It’s a vivid reminder that getting what we want outside of God’s timing often leads to distaste.
In Ecclesiastes 2, King Solomon had the resources to get everything he wanted. His conclusion? He realized that “Everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
In Luke 10, Martha was distracted by “many things” she thought were necessary, but Jesus noted that only one thing—sitting at His feet—was truly needed, that Jesus called the better portion.
My study lets me learn that I need to shift my spiritual Perspective. Practice Holy Indifference and learn to want what God wants more than your specific outcome.
Ask yourself, “What did I expect this thing to do for my soul that it wasn’t designed to do?”
Use the disappointment as a compass. If the “dream” didn’t satisfy, it means you were made for something bigger than that dream.
Practice Gratitude in the Gap and thank God for the “unanswered” prayers and the “answered” ones that taught you what you don’t need.
“Lord, thank You for the things You gave me and the things You withheld. Help me to realize that my dissatisfaction isn’t a failure, but a signal. My heart is restless until it finds its rest in You. Teach me to desire the Giver more than the gift.”
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Philippians 4:12 (NIV) Some people have a hard time with the word “contentment.” But surely not me! LOL It’s almost like I believe that if I want something, I won’t get it. But if I don’t want something, then I will get it. Whether it’s longing for a new season, an exciting change, a new refrigerator or something deeper, I struggle to make myself not want it because I know that’s what true contentment is. Maybe you’ve felt a similar situation in your own life. You’ve tried to make yourself not want something you deeply desire—because you think not wanting it will lead to contentment with what you currently have. But I think maybe we’ve missed something important: Desire and contentment are not mutually exclusive. We have desires. Sometimes they are good and godly. (Psalm 37:4—”Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart”) Sometimes they are not exclusive. (Jude 1:8—Yet these men, as a result of their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and insult the glorious ones.) But in Philippians 4, Paul said, “Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.” Paul says he learned the secret of contentment, and it’s not what we might expect. The secret wasn’t to deny his needs and wants. Contentment wasn’t something he was faking. Nor was he content because his circumstances were perfect. No, the contentment he found was in Christ, not his own strength. Contentment means living in God’s fullness, which means contentment is possible because it’s independent of our circumstances. That doesn’t mean we won’t still have desires. You can be content in Christ and still desire for something to be different. This is kind of hard, but the Bible offers us practical ways to be content in our wanting. We can: Fix our thoughts on godly things. (Philippians 4:8) Remember what God has already done. (Psalm 103:1-2) Talk to God, asking for what we want, and seek His will in prayer. (Matthew 7:7-12) The reality is, even when we finally get that one big thing we desired for so long, it won’t be long before we want something else—like me and my refrigerator or the Israelites and the quail. In fact, I don’t know if we can truly be without desire before heaven. As long as we are alive, we are waiting for Jesus to come make all things new. Our longing for something more isn’t going to go away. But we can trust the Holy Spirit to help us experience contentment, regardless of our circumstances. I can be content with the refrigerator I have and still wish I had chosen wiser. We can be content in our jobs and still desire different ones. We can be content with a newborn baby and still desire more sleep. We can be content in whatever season we are in and still desire for something to be different. I like these thoughts on contentment. Our longing for more is a good, eternal desire. Those desires move us to lean on the strength that comes from Christ, who gives us everything we need to live fully, right in the middle of our wanting, today. Contentment looks like being honest about what we want but trusting that God is not withholding His best from us. He gives us the strength to live fully and joyfully where we are because He has given us Christ. God, I praise You that You care about the deepest desires of my heart. Even in the middle of my wanting something to change, You offer a way for me to be content in any circumstance. Show me the ways I can live in the tension of being content and still wanting more today. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. Most of us know the feeling of desperately wanting to experience a breakthrough for yourself or someone you love. Prayers prayed. Tears cried. Time invested. God’s Word is the only investment that won’t return empty. Investing in God’s Word is an investment in—your friend, your daughter/son, your mother/father, your sister/brother. No matter what, we can be assured His Word never returns empty. Philippians 4:11, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” (NIV)
How have you let your desires dictate whether or not you are content?