What Do You Do With This?

What do you do when God doesn’t give you something you really, really want?Is there something that you have asked God to grant, perhaps even for years have prayed, perhaps done all you could to make come true, but God has not chosen to grant it?
It is best that the specific ‘what’ of these desires (dared we to share them) remain unknown as the comparisons between them would leave us all judging each other.
“That…she wants that?! Let me tell her how ‘wonderful THAT’ is!”
“Oh, my. Does she think that will make her happy?!”
“Oh great. She wants THAT and I just want a measley selfish THIS…what a louse I am!”
Yeah, I’m convinced that the fact that we don’t know each other’s secret desire is a good thing.
But, back to the point at hand.
When God doesn’t give you what your heart truly longs for,
What do you do with that?
More specifically, how do you answer the question that bangs around your head in those quiet unresolved moments ….”Why, God…why?”
Why does God sometimes withhold what we so deeply want, even when we’ve determined it could help us love and serve Him more?
(Your answer will point back to your theology.)
My answer, hard as it is to repeat, harder even still to try to be content in, rests in these truths.
God is good in all his deeds. (Ps 119:68 & 71)
So this choice of withholding something I so deeply want? It is good.
God is wise in all his judgments. ( Rom 11:33; Is 55;8-9)
So this denial of what my heart desires? It is for the accomplishment of his all-knowing and judicious plan.
God is loving in all his determinations. (Rom 8:35,37-39; Ps 23)
So this refusal of my heart’s cry? It is my Father’s watchcare, nudging me on in a direction of his choosing based on his protective love.
“How is this good, wise or loving? It doesn’t seem that to me.”
~Perhaps in keeping my heart from idolatry, of loving something or someone else more than God.
~Perhaps in keeping my affections from being entangled with things of this world, that it may be unencumbered to instead focus on eternity.
~Perhaps in how it calls me, how it forces me, to look to Him for my satisfaction instead of something lesser.
~Perhaps in how it allows me to model for other watching eyes the faith I have in my God even when He does not grant me what I want.
~Perhaps in how it reminds me that this earth is broken, a temporary setting that I dare not get too comfortable in as it is not my final home.
~And just perhaps every time my heart reminds me of the disappointment I feel, it gives me opportunity to flex my Spirit-given, love-for-God muscles and say in response, “ …but I love and worship YOU more, God. You are the delight of my soul.”
And one day…
“we shall understand; when these ‘tragedies’ that now blacken and darken the very air of heaven for us, will sink into their places in a scheme so august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall laugh for wonder and delight.” ~Arthur Christopher Bacon

What do I do with these unanswered requests?
(Well, it’s not without struggle, it’s not pleasurable, and it is often amid tears…but) I choose to trust God in faith and look toward a day when seeing Him will make it all plain.
I’m sure I’ll shake my head and wonder, “Why did I ever doubt?”