The Desires of Your Heart

3 Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.

Ps 37 NIV

Fridays are by far the best day of my week. Fridays are ESSL days. I am now a second year student of the Eastgate School of Spiritual Life where I go to fellowship with other students from around the country and learn how to deepen my lifestyle experience of God. The second year ESSL experience is divided into different streams and one of these is called Designed for Destiny. This stream facilitates our discovery of how we have been individually and uniquely designed by our loving Heavenly Father to have purpose and destiny.

It is the stream with which I have struggled most to engage, possibly because it is about strengths, gifts and our God given freedom to discover and explore ideas, goals and dreams.

It is so counter to the way I was raised and spent the first 30 plus years of my life. I never felt good enough for my mother’s exacting standards and I was always measured against and compared to others who were perceived to be more successful in their achievements. Anything that originated from inside me was not valued, appreciated, respected or encouraged. Any glimmer of success was attributed to having inherited her skills.

Anyway back at ESSL Designed for Destiny, as part of this journey of discovery, we first examined our strengths using a personality test. I have completed other personality tests in the past and I was immediately challenged. In the past I have always seemed to come out very middle of the road and not having a very definite personality in one area or another. I never occurred to me until recently that this was possibly an indication of balance. I found it really difficult to avoid the middle option and also felt I was selecting options based on personality traits I wanted to work towards rather than actually having those traits at that time.

Once this process had identified our strengths we began to look at how these impacted our goals and dreams. This is where it became really tricky for me. I resisted the instruction to write down our dreams, plans, ambitions and instead just left them to float about in my head. I wrestled with why this was.

Twenty years beyond my mother’s influence, was I still bound by issues of self worth? I opened myself up for God to do His work. Year 1 of ESSL had grounded me in the truth of my Royal Identity and the reality of living day to day as a Royal Princess of the Kingdom. That is not meant to be a pretentious statement, just a statement of Kingdom truth. Anyone who embraces Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour becomes a joint heir to the Kingdom of God, thus making all believers princes and princesses. I have at last learned to embrace that truth and live daily from that identity. But I was still struggling with the idea that as the daughter of the Creator, I too had the ability to create and initiate worthwhile activities and that my loving Father God approved and delighted even in the most frivolous of my ideas and dreams. The constant stop and start of this blog is a case in point. Doubt and diminished self worth caused me to frequently question my ability to write anything worth communicating.

Yesterday, in our session we were again prompted to think about these dreams and consider the steps we could take towards making them a reality. I finally gave in and made a note of them on my phone.

Here are some of my plans and dreams. The list is by no means finite and will no doubt continue to grow, as I grow in confidence of my identity.

1. Plant a church/café/encounter space and bring Kingdom Culture and Lifestyle into my local area

2. Impact the lives of young people with additional needs through teaching and mentoring

Purple glittery Dr Marten's - a birthday gift from Hubby

3. Develop my prophetic gifting

4. Sing in the music team

5. Blog (I can at last tick that off)

6. Have a tidy house (insert eye rolling emoji here!)

7. Renovate a property sustainably

8. Visit Hawaii

9. Collect and construct the series of Lego buildings

10. Own a pair of Dr Martens (see right)

The first one on the list has been mulling around for years and I have even shared that idea with others outside of my household but previous attempts to be involved in that have often ground to a halt. Today however, something miraculous happened. Literally as soon as I typed them into my phone and put them out there into the realm of reality, within minutes ideas and inspiration began to flow. I immediately began to plan in diagram form how I could expand on this idea and bring it to life. I now have a plan of action.

God meets you immediately you step out in faith.

Quite a while ago now I discovered what it means when God gives you the desires of your heart. When we make God the focus of our delight, not only does he give you what your heart desires but he actually puts the desires in your heart in the first place. God has literally given you the desires that are already in your heart. They already carry his stamp of approval.

So go ahead, fill your heart with desires and dreams. God’s resources are limitless.