My father has always told me that “I want” are two of the most dangerous words and for the longest time, I didn’t understand what was wrong with desiring something and wanting for something, but I get it now, that there lies an intrinsic issue at the heart of our wants. I don’t like to use the word most because it’s really just a beat away from all and I really don’t want to generalize, but I’m almost positive that most fits perfectly with the statement I am going to make. At the heart of most of our wants is having seen see someone else with it or in possession of it. You scroll on Instagram and see nothing but relationships and then you want one. Now, if you are at a point in your life when you feel you are ready for one, that is one thing, but if your desire for a relationship is rooted solely in how prevalent couples are on Instagram, then you do, in fact, have a problem. Because that want, that desire to want something simply because someone else has is called coveting. If coveting sounds familiar, it is because the 10th Commandment specifically says, Thou shall not covet, which means we shouldn’t be desiring or lusting after anything of our neighbors.

And once we desire that which our neighbor has or that which Instagram or society has convinced us we should want, we have already dug ourselves into a hole and once we are down there, it can only get deeper – if we are not careful. Because taking action to get that which you have been convinced you want may potentially cause you to compromise yourself, to do that which you never thought to do before social media told you you were missing out. The problem with any of this – with wanting, with coveting, and even taking steps in the wrong direction to satisfy the world or to fit in is that you are no longer acting within the will of God, but taking yourself out of it because you are desiring that which He did not yet give you, equip you for or even illuminate to you as yours to pursue. There is a myriad of scriptures that remind us that we ought to be living for God and that we ought not to lean upon our own understanding, and yet, that is what we do every time we look to social media and the people around us for guidance and for the standard of what we should want. We indulge in what we want without even consulting God. Or we do what I used to do – we just tell God I want this and expect it, when He has given us no provisions that this job, relationship, home, etc is ours. But our life is not our own, it is God’s. We have a purpose on this earth and a mission to carry out and the only way we are going to accomplish it or even begin to understand what we were created for in the first place is if we seek God and God alone. Because then it is impossible for us to covet, for us to even confuse what others have with what God has for us and not only that, but we begin to order our lives around what God wants for us and live after the Spirit and not the flesh.

The ultimate danger of coveting, of so desperately wanting and seeking after something simply because someone else possesses it, outside of the fact that you are living your life outside of God’s will and leaning upon your own understanding, which are incredibly dangerous choices, is that because you’re so focused on what someone else has and convincing yourself it is what you want and may even need, you are incapable of being in the right posture of seeing or even receiving what God has for you. What He has for you is for you. It is not one size fits all, but something crafted by God before the foundations of the Earth to shape you, build you up, and bring you closer to Him. He knows your path because He created it. Seek Him and Him alone. Your process and the very path for your life is unlike anyone else’s, so rooting your very life in anything but God will take you further away from Him and from the very plans He has, which as Jeremiah reminds us are “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11). Some of us don’t feel we can trust God’s plan because we simply don’t know Him well enough, but I can guarantee you that trusting Him is the best decision you can make.

I want is a dangerous statement because it, almost, always excludes God and is solely about what our flesh and not, our spirit wants. We ought to consider, not just what we want, but if what we want is what God wants for us. I leave you with one last thought. Think back to what you wanted as a teenager, what you valued, and what you thought was important, and think about if those things still matter to you today, and if you would have actually benefited from having those wants and what you felt were needed at the time, met. I’m going to go out on a limb and say no, the very things you prioritized at that age and wanted no longer hold weight anymore, do they? Thank GOD!