The Life God Wants for Me

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26

Does God want me to be happy? I’ve known those who believe they should do whatever they desire, supposing that God just wants them to be happy. That didn’t seem quite right to me. Rather, they appeared to use that argument to justify their self-destructive appetites. On the other hand, I’ve known those who’ve said that God doesn’t care about our individual happiness and that he’s only concerned with his grand will. That didn’t seem right either though. Matthew 10:30 says that God knows the number of hairs on my head. That doesn’t sound like a God who doesn’t care about the quality of my life. So, what is it that God wants for me?

Today’s passage, I think, reveals God’s heart for his people. In it, God described the blessing that he wanted his priests to bestow on his people. It is God’s desire to bless his people and to give them peace. So, what does that look like?

I think most of us have at one time or another, had a terribly self-centered view of God and his will. In my addiction, God didn’t do exactly as I wanted, so I doubted his goodness. You made me this way. Why won’t you take my addiction away as I asked? This is your fault. My life was chaos, and I desperately wanted God’s peace, but I thought that was something he should just magically grant me, while I was using drugs. While consuming drugs though, I could never know peace. I can’t experience peace while embracing chaos. Through my addiction, and subsequent recovery, God taught me that his blessing was a life of peace that is dependent on my response to him. I only get to know the blessed life if I choose to live in it. So, I had to do whatever it took to abandon drugs and follow God. Only then did I experience the blessing of a life in God.

Does that mean God irons out all the wrinkles of life if I follow him? No, the blessed life doesn’t mean I won’t encounter trials. Rather, it means that I may experience joy and peace in God as I learn that those things don’t come from my circumstances. Instead, I must daily choose to find my joy and peace in God, despite life’s trials. God desires to bless me and he desires that I experience a life of joy and peace. My experience of his blessing though, is dependent upon my response to him. So, daily, if I want that life, I must choose to live in it.