At times the most severe punishment God can levy upon us is not to withhold what we want, but to grant it. We don’t generally know what is best for us, and we certainly do not always desire it. We fixate on what may harm us or sidetrack us instead of on what is crucial. We believe the world’s lies that we are incomplete without possessing what it offers. So we work to gain it and plead with God to provide it.
God will generally seek to raise the level of our aspirations to a higher plane. He will work to create within us a desire for what is good, and noble, and pure. But at times we insist that we must have something that we want, be it a position, a possession, or a person. We are convinced that if only we had that, our life would be content and full.
At times God’s discipline is to give us what we want, even though it is not what we need. Even as we savor our newly gained prize, it will turn sour. What glittered with false promise will be exposed as nothing but cheap tinsel. What was meant to give us pleasure will bring us pain. Don’t be too ecstatic when you gain what you craved. It might be the very instrument with which God dispenses His discipline upon you.