Want

2 Chronicles 26:16

But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.

I was reading through emails with Pandora playing in the background. The orchestrated soundtrack of Legends of the Fall came on. This led to a series of Wikipedia clicks tracking down the nostalgia and memories of movies I didn’t understand when they came out and would not care fore now that I know what is actually going on, and since they don’t come in TV versions will never watch. Yet, the reality of these movies touched some part of people. The authors of the books, the directors of the movies, and the patrons of both watched and read as boys lived for themselves and died. As sad tales of want, sin, and life played out in godless detail.

The realities of these stories are not new, if overblown and stereotyped, men and woman have often longed for and wanted. Fixing their eyes on their neighbor’s wife, their father’s affection, their brother’s stuff. Our screens are full of men and women coveting that which isn’t theirs as the foundation for ill will between good guys and bad, lovers, children, the list is long. This is a “tale as old as time”. A woman is tempted to doubt God’s goodness and then desires that which has been denied her. A man knowing God is good, and that the serpent is lying, still chooses to rebel against God’s command knowing the lie for what it was (1 Tim 2:14). Advertisers do not have to work hard to create a heart of discontent, it is fertile soil already prepared!

Yet this want in a man’s is not limited to that which is not Good. Eve noticed that the fruit of the tree was good, that it was pleasing to the eye, God even declared that all of creation even the tree was good. Uzziah, was a godly king, doing what was right in the eyes of God, a lover of the soil, and an accomplished defender of his people. Yet, as he studied and contemplated, he started to think himself good enough to be a priestly king. So, he took his sensor and began his journey content in the knowledge that he was leading his people in righteousness. Wanting a position that was not his cost him his health and his son his faith. His son would never enter the Temple, and his grandson would follow Baal, a safe God. He wanted something good, something beautiful, yet God had appointed a place for it out of his reach. He was discontent with what God had provided.

Many, think that because the thing desired is good, and they can achieve or get it, that a good God would not deny them it. Yet, this is precisely what we see in the history of Uzziah. It is played out across the nation as desire for intimacy, misplaced, destroys marriages and people. As Men set their hearts on those things God has not given them.  Playing out in the church as women of intellect and ability have set their hearts on the pastorate. Men looking for sexual fulfillment look to other men that they might find someone with an equal sexual desire. All because they “want”.

The Psalmist begins with “the Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want”, contenting himself with that which God has supplied in the timing God has supplied it. Jesus is perfection of this, as with all things, content with the carpenter’s life until his time had come. Content with no home to lay his head, even content with disciples who just couldn’t get it. As the season approaches and marketers and friends are focused on creating or meeting our wants, will Christian’s simply stand with the Psalmist and say “I shall not want”, and let themselves be blessed by what their master gives them?

CRUCE, DUM SPIRO, FIDO