Bill Johnson - Can We Trust God With Our Desires?
Here’s one of my main goals for today: that everybody in this room could come to a place where we would say, «I only want what comes from His hand. I will not pursue anything in life that is not His heart, His plan, or His idea for me.» There was a season in our life when I could take you through my house and show you this couch, this table—everything seemed to represent a season. It’s that way again today, but it’s a different time in our lives. I remember back when Benny and I were first married, probably married for a year or two; I wanted to buy a hunting rifle. And if you’re against hunting, pretend it’s a camera—I’m going to shoot photographs of wildlife and then, for some strange reason, eat the photograph. But anyway, we’ll just leave it at that.
So, I saved up money to buy a hunting rifle, but some bills came up. I had even used birthday money; you know how you do. We just needed help. I saved enough to buy a nice little hunting rifle, and then these bills came up. I thought, «Yeah, who wants to be responsible when you can have fun?» That was kind of my approach. Why be responsible when you can have fun? But Jesus got the best of me. I sucked it up, paid the bills, and tried to be happy in the fact that we no longer had those debts. I don’t know if it was that week or two weeks later, but it was right around that immediate period of time. One Sunday night here at Bethlehem, goodness, probably in 1974, one of the older guys in the church—a wonderful, wonderful man—became a real good friend of ours.
After the service, or during the service before, he came up to me and said, «Bill, you need a rifle.» I said, «Yes, yes, thus saith the Lord.» He told me to come to his house after church that night. So, I went by his house, and he brought out this pre-64 Winchester, oh yeah—a pistol grip, .30-30 with a peep sight. It was just a classic old gun, and he gave it to me. That gun means a lot more than just a gun because it actually came from the Father’s hand through one of His special chosen ones. Interestingly, some years later, I was in Weaverville, and someone broke into our house while we were gone for a few days. They stole three or four guns, and that gun was with the others, but they didn’t take it. It was literally all together in one bunch, and it was like the Lord just said, «No, you’re not touching that one. That is a prophetic emblem. This is a monument to prophecies. We had fellowship here; we have agreement here; we had covenant here; and this is where I met with my son.»
What I want for my life is the word of God because it’s so much more fun when you stay in your lane. So many of you would be more than happy if you had your present condition and were placed in some broken and impoverished part of the world because you would be doing so well compared to everybody else. Let’s be honest. The issue of comparison is the problem here—the desire for other things. You can put anything else on the list you want. It’s pursuing things outside of the dominion of God. It’s as if I could just have this position, this marriage, this title, this education, or if I could drive this car, I know I would be happy. Amen? If I could just have this or that, if I could buy that house.
And what happens is that the appetite for other things, to satisfy—we pray for it because we want it to be in God’s will—but the appetite has pulled us out of our lane. And the appetite itself fuels the beast that chokes the promise of God over our lives that sometimes has the very fulfillment of the thing we’ve prayed for. But because the appetite has taken us out of our lane, does that make sense to anybody? The appetite pulls us out of our assignment, out of our lane, out of the sense of God’s timing. Then suddenly, the very hunger I have that could be fulfilled by the hand of God is now the very thing that works to choke the promise of God over my life. Years ago, I had a friend in Weaverville—I’ve shared this story, I think I shared it recently. He had a friend whose wife, while they were on vacation—and let’s be honest, my mouth is not yet ready to talk; I’m still in vacation mode—she called my friend and said, «Hey, if I could schedule it, would you take my husband fishing? He loves to fish.»
So, without her husband knowing, she arranged for him to have several days off with his boss and sent him to Weaverville to spend time with our friend Tom, who would take him fishing for several days. The guy had no idea. The wife talked to the boss, packed the gear, packed his clothes, and picked him up at work, saying, «You’re going to see Tom in Weaverville, and you’re going fishing for the next several days.» He said, «Wait, I’m supposed to go to work!» «Nope, you’ve got tomorrow off.» «What about the next day?» She arranged everything, so every «what if» was answered.
Now, how much more fun is it to go up there with her sponsoring the trip rather than him demanding his right as a husband to go fishing? Which is more fun: you having that promotion at work by God’s hand or because you manipulated, whined, and complained until you got it? The point is, the desire for other things actually chokes the true destiny of God over our lives. It has to do with appetite; it has to do with stewardship; it has to do with the divided mind. These are the areas that, if monitored well, will keep us in our lane so that by the end of our lives we can say with Solomon, «And everything that came into his heart came to pass.» That’s what I want to see. I’ve been praying that over my own life this week: «God, everything that You have promised, I want to see come to pass.»
Not just for my sake; as clearly as I know how to say this, I want to see every word He has promised fulfilled so that He would be revealed for who He is. I pray that over you. I pray that the Lord would help us as stewards of the word. I hear so many people say, «I don’t know; I’ve got all these promises over my life, but they just don’t come to pass.» Not you—it’s those other folks. When I travel, I’ll be honest, those are the people. The problem is never on His end of the equation, and it’s not a time for guilt and shame. It is, however, a time to be able to say, «God, my appetite is for Your dominion to be fully realized over me. I hunger for Your will. I’ll make any adjustment necessary because I want to see You exalted and revealed for who You are in the earth.» So I pray that over us as a church family right now.